When narrowing down my selections of books to read and report on, I decided to go back to high school, when I discovered my favorite author. Ellen Hopkins is a New York Times bestselling author, who has written more than 25 books in the Young Adult/Adult genre from 1990 to now. Mrs. Hopkins gets her inspiration for storytelling from her daughter’s life struggle with drugs, family issues, and her intimate life. One novel caught my attention on my class summer reading list titled Crank, which is written by Hopkins. Soon after, I continued to read the remainder of the series consisting of Glass and Fallout. Since I’ve read three books from her in the past, I’ve selected The You I’ve Never Known, to report on.
The setting takes place in modern-day
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Sonora, California, a modest conservative town known as "the Queen of the Southern Mines." The primary locations of the book are Monica’s house, Sonora High School, and local shopping districts. The You I’ve Never Known is full of a cast that you will quickly fall in love with.
The majority of the book is told by a tall and pretty seventeen-year-old, Ariel Pearson. She is affectionate despite her complex relationship with her father, Mark Pearson. While being on the road since the age of three, she is always pursuing to please her father, and his complicated relationships. Ariel and her father ultimately settle down in Sonora, California, to live with of her father's new girlfriend. Ariel is searching for her own identity. Life becomes even more complicated when she enrolls in Sonora High School her junior year. She establishes a group called the Freak Club with her new friends, Syrah and Monica. Syrah is introduced towards the beginning of the book. She is the wild child out of the three, dealing with separated parents, a step-mother, and twin brothers. Monica is Ariel’s best friend, who is a Mexican-American, Catholic lesbian. Ariel begins to have feelings for Monica but has been raised to believe that homosexuality is obverse. While she’s confident of her emotions for Monica, someone else has begun to strike her eye. Gabe, her father’s girlfriend’s nephew, has her questioning if she even knows what she craves from a relationship. Gabe is the oldest teenager out of the group, 19-years-old, who is up to no …show more content…
good. The book continues on with a flashback on the life of Maya. Her story begins with her unsteady home life at the age of 17. Maya’s parents have been divorced since she was 10-years-old, and her loving father had recently passed away. Her goal in life is to isolate herself from her mother so when she gets the opportunity, she jumps at it. She initiates a disastrous relationship with Jason Baxter, an army man who is 10 years older than her, in order to emerge from her home life. Soon, she becomes pregnant, which forces Jason into a position of marriage. While her mother doesn’t approve of the relationship, she obtains no power over Maya once she threatens to reveal her mother’s darkest secrets. Maya and Jason have a simple wedding and are now married when she decides to live with Jason on his army base and prepares for her first child. Once her daughter, Casey, is born, Maya begins to wonder who she actually married. The perfect marriage life begins to fade away as Jason becomes more aggressive. Maya's dream of independence immediately molds into a nightmare when she learns about Jason’s dissociative identity disorder. I chose The You I've Never Known because it's one of the newest novels that my favorite author has written. This text has an impressive development of characters and a natural flow between the two narrators, Ariel and Maya. A major plot twist becomes known when the book mentions that Ariel is Casey and Maya is Ariel’s mother. This brings Maya and Ariel even closer than I thought. Ellen Hopkins uses skillful pacing and carefully chosen words to hide the most important truth of the book. This novel also ties into what I've been learning throughout my General Psychology class, taught by Professor Boyle. This book brings awareness to many psychological disorders, lesbianism, self-concept, denial, passionate love, and conflict. Psychological disorders, syndromes marked by a clinically significant disturbance in an individual’s cognition, emotion regulation, or behavior, is shown in Mark Pearson throughout the book.
Mark develops Bipolar Disorder, a disorder alternating between hopelessness and lethargy or depression followed by an overexcited state of mania when his wife abandons him for another woman. Jason Baxter, Maya’s husband, develops a Dissociative Disorder called Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) which causes a person to exhibit more distinct and alternating personalities. Ariel Pearson and Monica go through a period of homosexuality which, is to have a desire for the same sex. For Ariel, this is short term, but for Monica, her homosexuality is long
term. Every character in the book goes through self-concept, our thoughts and feelings about ourselves. Passionate love, an aroused state of intense positive absorption in another, is shown between every relationship that’s formed in the book; unfortunately, no one gets to the level of companionate love. Denial and conflict reside in Ariel, Mark, and Maya’s relationship. Ariel denies her father’s story of how her mother really abandoned the family when she was younger. Ariel and Maya’s lives come together when Ariel’s mother shows up, claiming Ariel was kidnapped by her father at the age of three in order to have a more ethical life. Thus, the story about Ariel’s mother being a lesbian is false. I highly recommend this book to any enthusiastic psychological, romance readers.
...he story with the various characters. Melinda’s acquaintance, Heather works hard at finding friends and becoming popular, but in the end she turns away from Melinda. The story is about the high school years. Many times when we are growing up we can’t wait to get there because we will be treated as adults, but the truth is the problems that come along when we are older can be difficult. The various clans of students help present the theme by showing us that there are many different types of people. The popular cheerleaders, the jocks, the geeks and those who are just trying to fit in. Melinda transforming the janitor’s closet symbolizes her hiding her feelings and Melinda’s inability to speak and tell people what happened to her. High school can be fun but unfortunately through the eyes of Melinda it was a very hard time.
Her father works out of town and does not seem to be involved in his daughters lives as much. Her older sister, who works at the school, is nothing but plain Jane. Connie’s mother, who did nothing nag at her, to Connie, her mother’s words were nothing but jealousy from the beauty she had once had. The only thing Connie seems to enjoy is going out with her best friend to the mall, at times even sneaking into a drive-in restaurant across the road. Connie has two sides to herself, a version her family sees and a version everyone else sees.
The story is told from the point of view of the protagonist, first person narrator, Sylvia. Sylvia is a preteen African American girl, strong willed, intelligent, and the obvious leader of the pack. The story's plot involves a college educated black woman who comes back to an economically disadvantaged neighborhood on weekends and takes the local children on field trips of a sort. On this particular trip she lets the children experience their first ride in a taxicab to a toy store in Manhattan. It is played out through a chronological series of events from the time they leave their neighborhood, until the time they arrive back there.
The majority of families were once considered perfect. The father went to work everyday, while the mother stayed at home and cared for her two children, “Henry” and “Sue”. The children never fought and the parents were involved in all the community events. Our society has grown to accept that there is no such thing as a perfect family. Eleven-year-old Ellen from the book Ellen Foster, by Kaye Gibbons, grows up in a household where her father is an abusive alcoholic and her mother is too sick to complete everyday tasks. By using her positive assets, and learning from her negative assets, Ellen was able to overcome a lot of challenges throughout the book.
Characters in the story have a major impact on the theme of fantasy versus reality. The main character Connie, is a fifteen-year-old who exhibits the confusing, often superficial behavior typical of a teenage girl facing the difficult transition
Tracy’s identity development is heavily influenced by her new friendship with Evie from that moment on. Evie is so popular, but she makes very poor choices and Tracy follows her lead because she wants to seem just as “cool” as her new companion. This is a type of peer pressure that affects many teenagers daily.... ... middle of paper ... ...
They build a lot of support from their surrounding friends and even though they thought that they could not depend on their parents they quickly realized that they would need them as well as outside sources such as the local police and school peers who were unknowingly involved. All of the girls stay as positive as they can as well demonstrating brave characteristics and acts. When “A” puts the girls in tough situations they immediately send out “S.O.S” text to one another and they quickly compose a plan that makes sure that everyone secrets are kept and they are being put in safe situations. Every character, even the parents, have encountered a taste of what “A” is capable of and they are aware of how dangerous “A” can be because the are constantly asking questions, inferring when the girls are acting any type of way, and ironically each parent play major roles in the community. Spencer mom is a well known lawyer, so “A” makes sure to direct Spencer into situations where she gets into trouble with the police. Emily father is away and serving the country. Aria’s father is a college professor, who knows of Aria’s slip up, as well as knows of the new young teacher. Aria mother works
Drama surrounds the average teenager’s life. Peer pressure sweeps teenagers into a black hole, and family judgement has made teens’ lives miserable. Charlotte knows this all too well, and desperately tries to find herself over the summer at the family cabin. Everything goes wrong before it goes right. Before you know kindness is a novel written by Chris Bahjalian showing the struggles of the modern age teenager, and the stories that happen behind closed door. Through descriptive and intense character development, conflict, and a melancholy plot, Before you know kindness is a book people will be begging to read.
An honorary uncle of the Austin family dies in a plane crash and shakes up things. The co-pilot on the plane died too, and the Austins take in his ten year old daughter. They find that she is a spoiled only child who had little family life, and very rarely saw her parents and was left with different governesses and nurses. Maggy is a bad influence on one child in particular, Suzy, who Maggy encourages to act up. The novel is made up of different events, divided into chapters, and Vicky comments on things like new
Crank is one of the books I’ve chose.The book Crank is about a teenage girl named Kristina a typical high schooler “good girl” leading an average life in Nevada.But Bree is the opposite of her,Bree leads Kristina to the point of self destruction.Bree makes Kristina make bad choices and do drugs.Kristina has three boyfriends in the book,She ends up with her final boyfriend named Chase the “bad boy” who is slightly non attractive but ends up being kind and attractive at the end.The main conflict in the story was Kristina finding out she’s pregnant by Brendan,one of her old boyfriends, that ended up raping her.When she found out she was pregnant she tried improving her life and that means to stop doing drugs and stop drinking alcohol for the babies sake.What I liked about Crank was that Kristina stopped letting Bree decide what’s good for her and not.What I didn’t like about the book is that Kristina knew that Bree was making her do bad things and still let her make
Rob, the main character, who is 15, is planning to attend a boarding school in Connecticut. He knows that it won’t be easy for him to succeed since this school gives the best education and also since he is the first black student in the school's history. Rob and his personality relate to the theme of this book because throughout the school year Rob has to get through all the hardships that happened including leaving Paulette home when he had to go back to school, Vinnie leaving, and Rob and Gordie’s encounter with Malcolm X. He also had to remember to work hard for what he wants and he wants to prove himself and escape the segregated south. When Rob’s friend Russell asked him if he wanted to come to the sit-in, Rob replied with “I’ll be there, wouldn’t miss it for the world.”. This shows that Rob is working hard
On a high note to my reading experiences, I have thoroughly enjoyed a great deal of exciting and gripping books. Titles such as: The Hatchet, The Hunger Games series, the Narnia series, The Eleventh Plague, and many many more books and novels. Many of the books I enjoy are first person views that allow me to walk in the character’s shoes and mentally picture what they are going through.
These adolescented had changed themselves into a better person inside the juvenile hall. The teacher Mark, had made them open thier feelings in the writings and made them express thier crime. Francisco was known for his anger issues, but he gave Mark his respect becuase he was like a father to him who actually cared for him. Most of the classmates gave their respect to Mark, but unlike Kevin Jackson, he was very unique to the other inmates. Kevin was more of thinker to why he commited murder. Towards the ending of the book, the characters were transfered to a state prison. What they learned from the juvenile detention hall, all would be forgotten. They knew they had to be tough and not show any emotions towards other inmates. Out of the four characters, only Kevin Jackson decided to write and express himself and continue to write to
If you like dogs, cats, or bears and reading, you’ve probably heard of Erin Hunter. Maybe you haven’t heard of her, but she wrote the popular Warriors series, Seekers, Survivors, and Bravelands.