book review 2

In “the Coma”, Alex Garland uses the main character, Carl, to explore a psychological event of what happens to a person after they fell to a coma. This book describes about one possibility to a coma patient and describes a way to perhaps wake up from the coma. In this book, Carl was beaten till he was unconscious. When he wakes up, he realizes that something was weird until he found out that he was in a coma.

            Due to the complexity of careful syntax and dictions required to make this book less confusing, the author also divided this book into three sections. The first section talks about Carl in his coma sate where he continues his “daily” life. He thought that he was either paranoid or had a stroke which affected his brain. He was unaware that he was in a coma but he did notice a few strange things which he can’t explain so he thought that he was hallucinating. The second section reveals to the reader that Carl suspicion continues to grow until he realize that he is wake, but only in his dream. He realizes that he is never awake and that he is in the hospital, still in a coma. The third section reveals how Carl tried to wake himself up by trying to take a road down memory lane and remember something that might make him wake up. In the end, he saw himself in his dream the incident which led him to his coma state.

            Each section allows the book to be less confusing because the story continuously switched the scene where Carl is in his coma to where he is awake in real life but can not move. To have the whole plot revolve about Carl in his coma sate is confusing because if the diction is poorly worded, the story itself would be confusing. The author tried to divide this book into three sections to make this story less confusing.

            I think that his style of writing did make this less confusing to read. This book gets harder to read if the book wasn’t divided into this way and if the chapters were long. The author was careful in making the chapters really short to make sure that the readers can grasp what they read and the illustrations also helped.

Book Review: the Coma

What are the weaknesses of this book, in your opinion?

        In my opinion, the weakness of the book, “the Coma”, by Alex Garland is the short chapters and the continuous switching between one situation with another. The chapters are as short as one page or even half of a page. Although this book is very interesting because it keeps the readers anxious to know what really happens when one is in a coma. One of the flaws of this book is the chapters. It is pointless to me to see that this book have so many chapters when each chapter is really the continuation of the last. Reading it, I felt as though the author just made one section into another chapter to expand the pages. This story do captivates its readers but these chapters really annoy me and make me lose focus every single time. It completely made me neglect the reading and focused on the length of the chapters and compared one chapter’s length with another.

            The other flaw of this story is switching the event and the scene. Although the content of the story is understandable, the way how the author writes makes it confusing because the reader would then have to remind themselves that the character is switching from being awake in the coma to being awake in real life but no actually awake at the same time. The author did try to italicized chapters where the main character, Carl, is awake but not awake at the same time. The italicized chapters did help with the transitioning but the narration switches. The way Carl explains the situation gets mixed up. For example, in chapter two of the second section, one paragraph states, “The next morning, I was lying on the bed. I was lying on the bed, and the nurse was walking across the room towards me,” (Garland 74). It was confusing the first time I read this line so I had to reread it again. In this book, there is one Carl, but there is also two of him: the coma version of him and the sleeping version of him. It transitions between both on some chapters and so it was confusing because of the need to reread it and to reread it slowly. 

Amy Tan Vs. Amy Chua

What similarities and differences do you notice between Amy Chua’s relationship with her kids and the mother-daughter relationships we see in “The Twenty-Six Malignant Gate”?

In the Twenty Six Malignant Gate, we see that each daughter in the four chapters were rebellious against their mother because they felt oppressed. It is similar to Amy Chua’s article, “tiger Mom’ because both of the stories explain about a mother who tells her daughter to do this and do that and that it will benefit them in the future. The daughter will end up rebelling and then a fight begins. In the fight, the daughter will be stubborn to see things from another view, and just view it one sided while the mother secretly knew everything. Then the daughter realizes something and made up with her mother.

In “Four Directions”, Waverly Jong talked about how when she was a ten year old prodigy, her mother would brag and tell Waverly what to do with chess although she didn’t really know the basics of it. Waverly got angry at her mother because she “hated the way she [mother] tried to take all the credit,” Tan 170). A fight started in the streets where Waverly told her mother that she did not know anything and then ran. When she went back home, her mother began to ignore her and then when they are back on normal terms, her mother did not stay by her side when she practiced and did not brag nor dust the trophies. With time, Waverly, “understand finally. Not what she had said. But what had been true all along,” (Tan 183). Their fight allowed Waverly to discover something about herself.

In “Tiger Mom” Amy Chua had a similar fight with her youngest daughter. Her daughter was not able to play this one piece in the piano because her two hands cannot play a different tempo at the same time. Amy Chua continued to force her daughter to practice hard until she gets it right:

“Finally, the day before her lesson, Lulu announced in exasperation that she was giving up and stomped off.
Get back to the piano now," I ordered“You can’t make me.”“Oh yes, I can.”Back at the piano, Lulu made me pay. She punched, thrashed and kicked. She grabbed the music score and tore it to shreds,” (Amy Chua).

The fight ended with Lulu discovering that she was able to play the piece and found out that she have the potential to play it, just that she needs to work a little harder.

Joy Luck Club: Introduction

Question: What is Amy Tan’s purpose behind the introduction to the second section? What thematic elements, characterization, or plot foreshadowing connect it to the stories that follow, particularly “Rules of the Game” and “Voice from the War”?

            In “The Joy Luck Club”, Amy Tan’s purpose behind the introduction to the second section foreshadows the bond between mothers and daughter. The introduction talks about a mother telling her daughter to listen to her and to stay near her. The mother feared for the daughter’s safety if she is out of her sight. The daughter didn’t listen because she wanted to ride her bike but the mother refused. Even after being told about the Twenty-six Malignant Gates, the daughter still refuses to listen. She rode her bike to the corner, but before even reaching the corner, the daughter is injured.

            This is the theme of the stories that are in the second section. In “Rules of the Game”, Waverly Jong was a chess prodigy who gained fame at a young age. Her mother stood by her side proudly however during their grocery shopping, Waverly told her mother that she is embarrassed. The argument went to the point where Waverly ran and ran:

“I ducked into another dark alley, down another street, up another alley. I ran until it hurt and I realized I had nowhere to go, that I was not running from anything. The alleys contained no escape routes,”(Tan 100).

This relates to the introduction at the beginning of the section because the daughter had an argument with her mother and in the end, the daughter ran. this story of Waverly Jong demonstrates how the mother gave an advice to her daughter, but the daughter, rebelliously disobeys and in the end, an argument erupt from the mother and daughter.

Moreover, “The Voice from the Wall”, also connects to the introduction at the second section. Lena St. Clair told the story and how she had this imagination of what happened to her neighbor next door. One day, however, the neighbor, Teresa, went to her house. She told Lena:

“We had this fight and she pushed me out the door and locked it. So now she thinks I’m going to wait outside the door until I’m sorry enough to apologize. But I’m not going to,”(Tan 114).

This story also ties in with the introduction because it is also about a mother and a daughter arguing with each other about something.

Joy Luck Club. Kweilin

           In “The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan, Suyuan Woo tells Jing-Mei “June” Woo, her daughter, the Kweilin story. However, each time she retells her story, the ending seems to change. From a happy ending, it slowly changes into one full of mysteries and many unanswered questions. One version was about how the formed a club in Kweilin although many people were suffering. They would play and have “feasts” while laughing and enjoying the happiness trying to forget the painful time they are enduring at the moment. It then change into about how Suyuan used the money to buy one thing and exchanged it with others and so on. The third ending was the journey to another place in order to escape death because she knew her fate being an officer's wife. She journeyed to Chungking and during her trip, she slowly abandon her stuff which was too heavy for her to hold.

          She changes the story she tells her daughter due to two reasons: trust and a lesson. As a child, June Woo isn't capable of understanding such a complicated a dark story. Telling her would be meaningless so Suyuan made it a happy ending when June was still young. The older June gets, the more Suyuan can trust her daughter into understanding such deep stuff so the ending will change to match the level of June. The deep secrets will slowly be revealed each time she retells the same story. Moreover, she did it to teach June a lesson. When June tried to ask for something, Suyuan said, “Why do you think you are missing something you never had?”(Tan 25). Suyuan told the darker side of her story in order to teach her daughter that she should value stuff and to not be greedy for more stuff. When June sulked in silence when she couldn't get what she wanted, telling this story allows Suyuan to indirectly tell her message to June about possession and greed without directly saying it. Many stories do have morals even if it is very unrealistic. Suyuan was probably trying to teach her daughter things and trusts her daughter to understand them.

Orwell and Egypt

What connections do you see between the revolution Orwell described in Animal Farm and the events in Egypt, Tunisia, Honduras, etc...?
          The revolution that Orwell described in Animal Farm and the evnts in Egypt and many part of Middle East and Africa have many common aspects. one of them is involvement from a third party. In Orwell's book, when the animals are having their revolution, other animals from other farms were listening to the news while the humans were divided with the result of animals overthrowing their farmers. Some humans thought that they needed the farm back while other humans thought that the animals would break within themselves and fight one another. The uprising in the farm caused many humans to look carefully at the situation and divided the humans as to what will happen next. The same thing happened to Egypt. When the uprising started, many other countries were observing the situation, trying to see what will happen. United States involved themselves and since the situation was hard to predict, Americans were divided amongst themselves not knowing what the outcome of Egypt will be.
          Another common relationship with the book and the revolution in Egypt is that it slowly spreads. The news of the uprising spread both in the book and in Egypt. It spreads to other places near the rebellion. In Orwell's rebellion, the news of the animals rebelling in the farm spread all over England and many animals from other farms heard of the news. The same thing was with Egypt. Egypt had many uprising and the uprising inspired many other places to rebel as well. It gave courage to other countries that are suffering from tyranny and dictatorship. There had been many other tiny rebellion from countries who wanted the dictatorship to end and to have a democracy.
          Many of the rebellion that started was caused by people who are sick and tired from being ruled by a cruel tyrant. They are sick and tired of starving while their "leader" are wealthy and healthy. In Animal Farm, the farmers were happily profiting while making the animals work and making food out of the animals. The same thing happened to many of the countries that are now protesting. All the people were starving and don't have any freedom while their leader is profiting from their suffering. Both the rebellion from the animals and the people in Egypt and countries around it are trying to kick their tyrant out and to replace their system of government with democracy.

Power Corruption

 In my opinion, I think that those who obtain political power can eventually be corrupted but in the end, it depends on the individual. In history, it's true that many people who obtain power slowly becomes corrupted. An example would be Mao. Once he became the ruler of China, he tortured his own people and ruled with an iron fist. Even if one already holds power, due to human selfishness of wanting more, they would try to obtain stronger power, which is to take over neighboring countries.

Even though people do misuse the power, there are also people who don't. An example would be the George Washington. He led America to freedom from the British Empire, and gain the trust of many Americans. He could've took over and start the rule of tyranny, after all, he had everything he needs: trust of the military. Even though he could've, he didn't. Instead, when war is over, he went back to farming and stayed true to his loyalty in wanting a free America.

It varies from individuals whether or not they will be corrupted. Obtaining too much power can be a bad thing because it is hard to control and it leads to overconfidence. Holding an extreme amount of power is a huge responsibilities because it leads to arrogance and wanting more control.

I think George Orwell might agree with me that there are some people who attains political power can misuse it. When one holds power, they live a luxurious life while others who are less powerful will have to work day and night just to provide a meal.

“Man is the only creature that consumes without producing ... He sets them to work, he gives back to the bare minimum that will prevent from starving, and the rest he keeps to himself,”(Orwell 29).

Human nature itself is cruel. Selfish desire to be better than the rest, to be powerful, and to be the boss of everyone. Tyrants holds power and they misuse it. They live in a luxurious life from all the hard work that thousands of people worked for to provide their families a roof to live under. Having power makes tyrants lazy only wanting to give out order and not work.  

Ender's Game Response Part 3

“Ender’s Game”, by Orson Scott Card, is a really confusing book to read. The beginning was interesting, whereas the middle gets boring and then toward the end, it gets interesting. This whole book somewhat revolves around a typical school life of bullies and groups. Ender suffered being bullied and isolated due to his intelligence surpassing boys who are older than him. They were all sent to the battle school, ‘kidnapped’ from their families, in order to train and compete to be a future commander or hero. With everyone competing, everyone would hate the fact that there is someone younger than them who are more brilliant. So out of jealousy, the guys in the battle school will gang up in groups and attack him or harass him. Throughout the book, it only explained how Ender slowly understands technologies and learning new techniques. This is weird because only toward the end, that the book finally showed actions and showed a real battle which ended with a couple of pages.

My group discussed how most of the book drags on about Ender’s training and skimmed through his battle. One of my group members suggested that it was to help the readers understand the technologies because this story is set into the future. The things discussed in the book would be too confusing for us to understand if the author skims through battle school and just talked about Ender’s battle and the adventure afterward. We also discuss about how this book is somewhat amazing because the children in this story acted so mature that we had to constantly remind ourselves that the protagonist is an eleven year old boy. Overall, my group’s discussion revealed some things that I had never considered before such as revolving around a typical school life. It was interesting and the topics were things that I easily overlooked in this book.

            We also discuss about whether the buggers forgave humans or wants the humans to forgive them. Part of what I didn’t really mention in the discussion is that Ender is trying to help the buggers repopulate because he wanted to atone for his sins of killing an entire species.  The fact that he is somewhat like Peter still haunts him; he didn’t want to be a killer, didn’t want to be the person that he feared the most but he killed the buggers. He was afraid of becoming more vicious than Peter so he probably helped the buggers to compensate for what he had done to their species.

Ender's Game Response Part 2

           In our discussion, we discussed about “Ender's Game” Orson Scott Card, and about the monitor in that the government installed in Ender's neck. We debated about how the I.F., or International Fleet, was able to hear about the fight and went to Ender's house even though they took the monitor away from Ender. A brief summary of this book is that it takes place in the future where many technologies have greatly evolved. Kids have monitor in them when they were born. The monitor connects to the brain, so that the government can observe how they think and their view. If the government thinks that they were capable enough, they will be sent to space in a battle school, to train to be a future commander. This is what happened to Ender. His older siblings, Peter, the oldest, and Valentine, the second oldest, had monitors on them and they showed great potentials. Having more than two kids is breaking the law, but because Peter and Valentine showed great potentials, the government allowed that family to have a third child. Ender was the third child and he was nicknamed Third. His classmates doesn't like him and even Peter, his own sibling, doesn't like Ender.

           Ender grew up isolated and only receiving love from his sister, Valentine. Valentine became so precious to him. After his monitor was taken off from him, Ender didn't have the government's protection anymore because they won't see what will happen to him. He went to school as a normal kid, but the other kids hate him. Hate, will of course lead to bullying. Ender, when he was finally able to go to school, encountered some bullying. He attacked Stilson and continue to attack for self defense and also to prevent future bullying. With no monitor on Ender, the government doesn't know if the kids bullied Ender and if Ender beat them up. But the thing that was in question for our discussion was whether they took the monitor off him or not. If the government really did take it all off, then they wouldn't know about the fight. A normal fight at school will be dealt with from the school but having the I.F. Going to Ender's house was really suspicious.

Ender's Game Response Part 1

“Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card, is a story about a futuristic life where aliens have invaded Earth and due to the fear that they might come back, the I.F. scouted boys to be part of a ‘game’. The boys will be monitored when they are three and if they have the qualities to become a commander, they will go to space where they train. Their training is a game where competition is the only thing. Ender is a young boy, six years old, who went to space to train and the book talks about his experience.

            In my group discussion, we mainly focused on government and Peter. The government is recruiting children who are six years old. This is cruel because they should be playing around, trying to discover their identities rather than being sent up to space, secluded from Earth and their families. I think that the government in this book doesn’t see their people as humans but as tools that they can easily use and throw away. From how I see it, the government used the invasion to get people to fear and be paranoid and use that to train an army of abnormally talented kids.

            Peter is Ender’s older brother and the eldest of the three children. He is considered dangerous and he despises Ender. He would beat Ender and torture him. He has nothing nice to say about Ender or to Ender. Peter invited Ender to a game, and the result was that, “He lifted his foot, took a step, and then knelt on Ender, his knee pressing into Ender’s belly just below the breastbone,” (12).  Peter didn’t hesitate to fight Ender and he attacked Ender as if they were truly enemies. Peter is a murderer and he is willing to show it. While reading, I thought that Peter is fifteen, but he is actually ten at that time. It surprised me how he is smart enough to deceive adults and to have such murderous intent. But the reason why we discuss about Peter is because of what he told to the pretend sleeping Ender, “‘Ender, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know how it feels, I’m sorry, I’m your brother, I love you,’”(15). This part is surprising to me yet I knew that it will happen. My group members said that even if a person hates their siblings and wants to kill them, they would still love their siblings. We all agree that our sisters or brothers can be a pain in the ass and would make us go crazy, but despite that, we still love them a lot. I think that Peter is proud of his brother, but at the same time he is jealous. He’s the oldest and it is an embarrassment if the youngest is better than the oldest. Ender is the living proof of what Peter can’t become. I think that Peter is proud so he acts mean toward Ender out of jealousy but is trying to help Ender as well. Peter is intelligent so he must understand Ender’s position. He might be trying to protect Ender by being the cruelest person so that Ender is prepares for any kind of obstacle. I think that this is how Peter shows his love toward Ender, his little brother.

the Garcia girls

- Pick a character that interested you and write about them in depth. You can also analyze relationship between two different characters.

- How would you describe the author’s style of writing? What’s your opinion of the style?

Moving to new places always need adjustments. A new culture must be adapted while struggling to maintain their own. In How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez describes the story of how the four girls and their parents moved from the Dominican Republic to the United States. The youngest Garcia Girl, Sofia, easily embraced a new culture due to her limited amount of time in the Dominican Republic.

Out of four girls in the Garcia family, Sofia (Fifi), the youngest, have vague memories of the Dominican Republic. The family left the island to America when she was young. Her accent was the only memory that she have left of their homeland; it was what’s left of her true self before she began to change. Because she is a kid, she will forget easily, not knowing what’s important. herr innocence is still undisturbed because she doesn’t know the many problems adults face. As a child, she possesses huge amount of innocence, “Baby sister Fifi and my sweet-natured cousin Carmencita were everyone’s favorites, a helpful little pair, good for errands, turning jump ropes,”(225). When Fifi is still a child, she was obedient because she doesn’t have the knowledge that can help her decide for herself. As a child, the only thing that occupies her mind are playing and receiving love from adults. It never occurred to her that the adults were making sure that she isn’t doing something that will break the tradition and taking advantage of her with the helping. She grew up in the Dominican Republic in a life where she is the adorable child love by everyone because of her obedience.

As she grows older in America, she becomes more of a rebellious kid. During their vacation, the sisters would act like innocent kids in front of their parents. At night, however, they        discuss the bad things they did, “We took turns being the wildest. First one, then another of us would confess our sins on vacation night … Baby sister Fifi held the title the longest, though Sandi, with her good looks and many opportunities, gave her some competition,” (86). They soon adapted to the custom of sneaking behind their parents’ back and doing many things that was forbidden to them. Fifi, as described by one of her sisters, was the “bad child” because she did things that were worst than her sisters.

It is shown at the beginning of the story that Fifi ran away from home. This was when she got used to the American life. Dating without a parent knowing about it was considered misbehavior because of the traditional life that Carlos, their father, had lived. When he found out that Fif is sending letters to a guy, he, “then wrapped it round and round in a mad effort to contain his youngest daughter’s misbehavior,” (29). Fifi didn’ really know the tradition of her family since she left her country when she was young. Being a child growing up learning new things, she can easily embrace the American culture. Her behavior in doing stuff behind her parents’ back even though she is the youngest out of the four daughters shows that the American culture is part of her identity. In a new place, people needs to adjust and try their best to fit in. her other sisters had a hard time changing because their Spanish culture is already part of their identity and they need to change it. Fifi, on the other hand, was still trying to find her identity when they move to America. She began to mature and took the American culture as part of her identity because she is trying to fit in with everyone.

            These changes are seen through the unique style of writing that Alvarez uses. By using the reverse chronological style of writing, Alvarez recreates the memory of the Garcia Girls’ experience of moving to a new environment and adapting a new culture. She divides the book into three sections: the first being their lives in America and their different experience with men, the second about their experience moving to a new place and the third about their childhood in the Dominican Republic. She divided to three sections to guide the readers and to show the vivid memory in the beginning of the book hinting that it is recent and the blurred memory near the end of the book hinting that it was a long time ago so details will be forgotten.

            In my opinion, I think that this style is confusing to follow at first but is very effective. Reading the book in the beginning was confusing because it is in the present time in the book. Many things were thrown out at once and it was hard to follow with so many events happening. It was hard to grasp all the details but it was interesting. There was a rush for me to continue reading it due to having so much information in the book. I didn’t understand much of what I read at first but the amount of events makes me want to continue reading till the end. Later in the book, much of the events were later explained by going to the past. We get to see why each of the girls turned out to be the way they are. I think that if the book was written in chronological order, it would be boring and it would be hard to show the girls’ memories.

            This is an interesting book to read because I was able to relate to the immigration life that the Garcia girls faced. I was able to understand the hardship that the girls had to experience and adapting to a new culture. American life is different from the Dominican life because of the difference in culture and of the sex rules. In the Dominican Republic, the adults were always strict about a female staying alone with a male without a supervisor. In contrast, in America, both genders can stay with whoever they want because of the mixed cultures in the country.

            While reading, many questions came up. Because of this reverse chronological style of writing, looking in the current life the girls are living in, I ask many questions such as how did they become like this and what happened before. These questions increased my interest for the book. Overall, this book may be confusing but the reverse chronological order shows the transformation the four girls experienced and it was a very interesting book to read.

Garcia Girls Part 3

After reading How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, by Julia Alvarez, I have to admit, I am still confused. Part one was easy to understand but then part two got a bit confusing and in part three, it was really hard to interpret what happened and understand the story. The reverse chronological order isn’t confusing anymore but in part three, there were many new characters introduced and the events that happened were so hard to remember.

            In our group discussion, we talked about how it was much clearly in the beginning because the author purposely wrote it in the way how the girls remember their memories. Since the one closer to the presents were more vivid, the beginning of the book was easy to understand. And the closer the events were toward the end of the book, the more blurry the details are due to the memories, which might be the cause of its confusion.

            The father really left a bad impression on me. He was suppose to protect and support the family, but when guard came, all he did was hid while his daughters and wife had to deal with the guard carrying guns. I think that he could’ve done something else rather than hiding to show his protection to his family.

            The ending was really disappointing to me because the part about the cat didn’t really show up at the beginning of the book to show the impact of the nightmare and the cat doesn’t really symbolize anything. I feel that it is irrelevant because the guy with the gun and the dog and crazily shooting doesn’t really symbolize anything and his words didn’t really affect Yoyo’s future. The mother cat chasing Yoyo and the baby cat’s unfortunate fate plays no role either. I think that vignette really is redundant and useless because it made the book more confusing and it ended badly.

            The beginning of the book was interesting and it slowly got boring near the end to me. I felt that the author could’ve written a much better ending. I thought that the book was going to end with the family event, not just focusing on one daughter. It was really a disappointment and didn’t really end with something that would be memorable to the reader. 

Garcia Girls Part Two

Part two of How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents was somewhat boring to me. The first part was interesting although confusing. I finally understood how the book works and the second part is boring me. The second part doesn’t have as much drama as the first part. The first part was throwing all these events that happened quickly and it was really intense; I hope the third part isn’t as boring as the second part.

            After discussing in my group about this story, I realized how the mother’s role in this book affects the girls. When they moved to America, the mother was trying to break free of the cage that limits her life. In the Dominican Republic, the mother was forced to be only a housewife and a mother. She was only a wife and wasn’t acknowledged for other things. Only the men were dominant back in the Island. The daughters think that the mother failed as a mom but by the way I see it, I think the mother is trying to make their daughters proud by trying to be someone who’s not just a mother. She wants to be somebody in America due to her caged life but she tried at the wrong time. She picked the wrong time to be someone else because that’s when the daughters need support from a mother. The role of mother changes depending on the situation and I think that the daughters just want encouraging words from their mother but couldn’t.

            This also relates to how the females of the house were able to embrace American Cultures but the father was the only one who couldn’t. The father is really traditional and he likes the system where the males were dominant figure of the house and the females must obey him. Whereas, the women of the house, like the American Culture because they have power and can use the excuse of culture to rebel against the dominant male. They are able to be independent and since the American Culture allows women to have more freedom, the girls embraced the culture more easily than the father. Even the mother was able to adapt to the American life because she got a sense of identity in America.

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

The weakness of In How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, by Julia Alvarez, was the different events regarding the daughter and the time of the book.

            The book was reverse chronologically meaning that it goes from the future to the past. This kind of time is really confusing because I have to keep reminding myself that a certain event is before and not after the last chapter. Time was harder to keep track of in this book and there were so many times that I had to reread something and remind myself that the book is from the future to the past. Events were mixed up with one another and rereading was common for me in this book than any other book.

            Many of the events were confusing as well because of all the information about the daughters and their husband. The story would talk about one daughter and their husband and later talk about another daughter. This is so confusing because it’s hard to remember specific details. The detail about the husband’s job was hard to remember too. I would get myself mixed up with which daughter is the oldest and which one is the youngest. It was hard for me to remember some of their names because the first part of the book is mostly about the third oldest and the youngest daughter.

            So far, the story is a little interesting but there’s a bit too much information on certain stuff. When I first found out that we were going to read this book, I immediately gave this book a bad impression because the colors were dull, the title wasn’t really interesting, and I didn’t vote for this book.  I thought that this book would make me fall asleep and I dreaded reading this book. While reading the first three vignettes, my impression changed. I like the book a little because it was interesting. The book was very detail written, although I wanted some parts to not have as many details as they have. Even though the book was confusing, I always have this feeling that I want to continue to finish the vignette.