Blog Reflection

This trimester I have read about three different books and have started another. I have read Divergent, House of Hades, and Mark of Athena; I am currently reading Insurgent. My goal is to read 15 books by the end of the year, I have not yet met this goal but according to good reads, by the end of the 2014 year I should have 15 books read. Good reads helped me find new books by providing books like the ones I just finished, Good reads will take the book I just read and will automatically bring books either by that author or that have the same genre as it. Throughout the blogging experience I struggled with finding new topics to blog about, I have never been great at finding examples of figurative language and important quotes but through the trimester I have become better at finding examples of these. As I read I focused on finding examples of figurative language and this helped me to find pieces now when I read. One strength that I have while blogging is that I add my own opinions into the blog, instead of just  putting  quote and saying what it means, I will describe what I think of that quote, I will say how I think the quote will affect the story.

Over the trimester I have developed a better understanding of characters. Toward the beginning of the trimester I made a blog that was very vague. It was a sort of summary, but the blog wasn’t very good with descriptions and quotes. I said that I liked it but I didn’t go into depth on why I liked it. “This is my favorite book because over the course of the series you have grown attached to the characters.” This quote I said in my third blog isn’t descriptive. I didn’t use quotes showing characterization. If I added quotes showing characterization, then I might have been able to go into depth on how and why as you read the book you get attached to the characters. I also had the quote “I am less than halfway in, and the characters have already gone through so many problems.” This quote is very unclear and doesn’t give any quotes of problems. The quote didn’t even give examples of the problems. Also in my blog I didn’t add any figurative language or word choice. In my best blog I created a character sketch that showed my growth in finding better understandings of the characters. I focused in on the seven main characters, Annabeth, Percy, Jason, Piper, Frank, Hazel, and Leo. I made a short summary of how each character changed over the course of the book. I also chose a quote that shows how or when each character changes during the book. “’Just like Festus isn't only a collection of parts. He's alive. He's my friend. And when his friends are in trouble, especially Leo, he can wake up on his own.’ This is where Piper used her power to turn a metal dragon into a real live dragon. She starts to realize how she is needed for this trip and how powerful she really is.” This quote is from one of the characters in my blog. I have the quote that is in the book and I break down the quote to help understand it better. This blog is better with having figurative language, I also broke down the characters to help describe them better. This blog is by far a better blog than the first one.

 

 

 

Worst in my Book

In my story the main character, Tris, left her faction Abnegation becuase she thought she wasn't selfless enough to be in it. Throughout the stories though she has been becoming more and more selfless, to the point of suicidal. This is a bad trait to have and that is why it's the worst thing in my book. She puts herself in reckless situations just to be selfless. She wants to prove to her parents that she can be selfless becuase both her parents died to help save her and she wants to pass that on by sacrificing herself to help others. What she doesn't realize though is when she should act like that. She puts herself in danger sometimes when she wouldn't even be saving someone. A quote from page 260 in Insurgent is where Tobias tells her about how she is always trying to sacrifice herself at the wrong time, "You are a sixteen-year-old girl who does't understand that the value of a sacrifice lies in its necessity, not throwing your life away!" Right now she is turning herself in to Jeanine because she wants to save Tobias, who would turn in himself to protect her, but what she doesn't realize is that her sacrifice is pointless because Tobias will come to save her anyway and then they would both be there in danger. Tris having this trait is the worst thing in my book because as a reader you want her to survive and be happy, but putting her in these situations just puts her closer and closer to death.

 

 

 

Author: Veronica Roth

The author of my current book, Insurgent, is Veronica Roth. Veronica has written three well known stories, Divergent, Insurgent, and Allegiant. She wrote the first book of the series, Divergent, during her spring break of her senior year at Northwestern University and sold movie rights right before graduating college. Veronica was born in New York and grew up in Illinois. Divergent has been made into a movie which will be released March 21st

 

 

 

 

 

 

Veronica  Roth's Divergent Interview



 

http://veronicarothbooks.blogspot.com/