In the novel “The Summer I Turned Pretty” by Jenny Han, Belly is a 16-year-old girl who is trying to figure out who she is. Every summer Belly, Steven, and their mom (Laurel) go to Cousins Beach. Where they spent the whole summer at Laurel’s friend’s beach house, with Susannah (Laurel’s friend) and her two sons Conrad and Jeremiah. The novel begins with Belly, Steven, and Laurel in the car going to Cousins Beach. Once at Cousins Beach, Belly decides to finally invite her best friend Taylor to the beach house for a week. While Taylor is at the beach house, Belly starts to notice that Conrad and Jeremiah give Taylor more attention, and treat her more like a girl rather than a sister like they do with Belly. As Belly notices this, she gets jealous …show more content…
But when she went to the beach to catch them, she soon noticed that it wasn’t Jeremiah but her brother Steven and they were kissing. When Belly saw this, she got frustrated at Taylor and Steven and didn’t want to talk to them. After Taylor leaves the beach house, Belly starts to hang out with Conrad and Jeremiah. While hanging out with them, their friend Clay invented Belly for his party. Finally being invited to a party, Belly quickly said yes. While at the party, Belly met a guy named Cameron. While talking to Cameron, Belly realizes that they both went to the same convention. When Conrad and Jeremiah realize that Belly is talking to another guy, they both get jealous. After the party is over, Belly continues to talk to Cameron and starts to develop feelings for him. Cameron also starts to develop feelings and asks Belly to date him. As Belly and Cameron are dating, Belly starts to notice that Conrad and Jeremiah are getting jealous of Cameron. When Belly notices this, she starts to realize she likes them being jealous, and may still have feelings for Conrad. Cameron starts to notice Belly’s behavior towards Conrad and Jeremiah and asks her if she likes
Imagine it’s your 11th birthday, an exciting event that should be fun and happy, but it turns out to be depressing and disgraceful. Well, that is what happened to the main character, Rachel from Eleven. Rachel is forced to wear an ugly red sweater that isn't hers which makes her cry. She repeatedly wishes she were wiser than eleven because she doesn't know how to respond to her situation properly. Similes and repetition contribute to the depressing mood of Eleven by Sandra Cisneros.
It is often said that the setting of the story can change the character’s mentality and personality. In the classic vignette, A Summer Life, Gary Soto addresses his childhood to adulthood in Fresno in the course of a short vivid chapters. Born on April 12, 1952, a year before the Korean War ended, Gary experiences his life in Fresno of what he describes “what I knew best was at ground level,” and learns what is going on around the neighborhood with his religious background behind him. Later, when he realizes his father passes away, he undergoes hardships which cause his family to be miserable. Growing up in the heart of Fresno, Gary Soto, the author, explains his journey as a young man to adolescence through his use of figurative language and other adventures. The settings of this book revise Gary’s action and feelings around his surroundings.
Sandra Cisneros writes a memoir through the eyes of an eleven year old. Turning eleven happens to be a tragic day for the main character, Rachel. Through various literary techniques such as hyperbole, simile, and syntax, Rachel is characterized. Rachel is a fresh turning eleven year old who finds herself in an awful situation on her birthday. Forced to wear a raggedy old sweater that doesn’t belong to her, she makes it defiantly clear her feelings towards the clothing item, and we see this through use of hyperboles. Rachel describes the sweater as ugly and too “stretched out like you could use it for a jump rope.” This extreme exaggeration demonstrates the fire within Rachel. She is a defiant and pouty little girl who out of stubbornness has to defy the sweater in her mind. “It’s maybe a thousand years old”, she says to herself in act to degrade the filthy red sweater even more. The sweater to Rachel has become an eternal battle of ages. She is torn on whether or not to stand up and act bigger th...
Back in 1990, a man named Gary Soto decided to write an autobiography about himself, titled A Summer Life. One of the more interesting portions of the book was when Mr. Soto described a summer day back when he was six years old. On that day, young Gary found out what it felt like to be a true sinner, as he stole an apple pie from the local bakery. Some readers found this as one of the more interesting parts, not because of the plot, but because of the literary devices used, such as detail, imagery, and pacing. The three aforementioned literary devices are almost a backbone to the story, because without those three, the story would be shortened and fairly bland. The following three paragraphs will each describe a literary devices used by Mr. Soto to enhance the quality of his story.
Friendship doesn’t last long when people grow apart and have different interests. In Susie Kretschmer story’s “And Summer is Gone”, the friendship between Daivd, the speaker, and his childhood friend Amy starts to fade when their contrasting characters develop different interests, personalities and achievement as they grow up When school begins, both characters grow apart when Amy’s interest dramatically changes in order to fit into her social peer group. These changes cause her relationship with David to deteriorate as her interest shifts. Amy becomes less interested in “build [ing] little pyramids of clay” and prefers to “[go] to every part, every football game, every prestigious event at school”. She loses her interest in art and becomes more superficial and social.
The short story Eleven by Sandra Cisneros, focuses around the main character Rachel as an insecure developing girl who lacks the experience to handle everyday encounters. Rachel, an eleven year old girl truly encapsulates the thoughts that are present within an adolescent. The lack of confidence in herself, excessive fear of being judged, and ideas of growing up are ideals that are relevant within each and every one of us. The reader is able to relate to Rachel because her feelings and experiences that are described by the author are similar to what most people have been through and are currently experiencing. The characterization of Rachel is expressed through the author’s usage of point of view, imagery, and repetition.
Very softly, he said, ‘You could marry me’” (Han 56). This quote is one of the more unexpected points in the book, which also makes it seem like it will not work out between them. At the end of the book, when she has to make her final decision, she finally realizes that she doesn’t need to get married now either way. It is the day that she is supposed to marry Jeremiah, but he leaves and can’t be found for a while, and she talks to both her brother and best friend. Everyone had been trying to get her to wait the whole book, but she didn’t take their advice, and it dawns on her. For example, the author writes, “It ended up not raining that day. Jeremiah’s frat brothers and my actual brother moved the tables and chairs and hurricane vases in for nothing. Another thing that didn’t happen that day: Jeremiah and I didn’t get married. It wouldn’t have been right” (Han 287). Both of these moments in the book show how little Belly had thought this through, and she learns how she still needs to mature and grow. In conclusion, throughout the book, Belly learns how to make sure she is right, and how to be a grown
“I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees” (11). Adolescence brings on many changes in one’s life and is the time when a person is shaped into who they will be forever. Sandra Cisneros shows the experiences one may go through while growing up through this book. A child, especially during their adolescence, is a very moldable person. The situations they go through and their position socially can greatly impact who they become. Cisneros touches on the importance of friends, life at home, and experiences in the real world that can influence a child’s life. In The House On Mango Street, Cisneros uses strong descriptive words, first person point of view, and suspense
When April first moves in with the Dions, their generosity and love welcome April into their family and although she does not feel like a complete part to their family, she loves them and knows that is was loved back. During her time with them, her confidence begins to build. The Dions treat her just as they would their own children and celebrate her achievements with recognition and praise. April feels as an equal to other children and believes she has value which she later struggles with. She explains her confidence when, after the Dions celebrate her good grades she says, “For an eight year-old, I had a very large head for a while”(22). By saying this, April is identifying the fact that she knows she had high confidence in her self but after a while, that changed. Following this however, April’s life changes and her pride and self assurance begins to diminish. When April is moved to a second foster family the Derosiers, their neglect and abuse towards her cause her to feel awful about herself and her heritage. The family make April and later her sister Cheryl do all the chores, they beat them and they verbally abuse them with racist names and hurtful stories about their parents’ alcohol problems. This family’s treatment towards April and her sister only make her more ashamed and self conscious about her Metis background which has a lasting effect on her life as an adult. April’s phsycological well-being experiences many more difficulties as her life progresses that cause her self-esteem and identity to struggel due to society’s views and treatment of Metis women and
The story of Summer, by David Updike, is set during that idyllic time in life when responsibility is the last word on anyone's mind. And yet, as with all human affairs, responsibility is an ever-present and ever-necessary aspect to life. What happens when the protagonist, Homer, loses his awareness of a certain personal responsibility to maintain self-control? Homer's actions increasingly make him act foolishly, internally and externally. Also, how does Homer return to a sense of sanity and responsibility? To a degree, I would say that he does.
Eighteen year old Isabella is a tall, brown haired girl with even deeper brown eyes. Throughout the series she has grown. We’ll Always Have Summer being the book she experienced the biggest change in, mentally anyway. Belly has a soft spot for Jeremiah in the beginning, but she knew deep down that she had been in love with Conrad the whole time, though many times she had kept trying to convince herself otherwise. “When I saw his face turning to look at me, I felt a rush of ...
She is thirteen years of age who, at the start of the book, finds out that ...
The Windup Girl. San Francisco: Night Shade Books, 2009. Print. The.
Young adults are losing their childhood innocence; replacing it with the world of adulthood. The most reoccurring theme throughout the book, Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill is the loss of innocence. The protagonist named Baby, lives with her father, Jules who is a heroin addict. Jules and Baby are constantly moving to different apartments in Montreal, where Baby is exposed to drugs, juvenile detention and forced into prostitution by her pimp. Baby experiences many obstacles in her life at the age of thirteen because she doesn’t have a father that loves her enough to guide her into the right path of life. Therefore it did not take long for Baby to lose her innocence.
In Wollstonecraft’s radical essay, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, she discusses women’s issues including marriage and the right for an education equal to that of a man’s. A part of her argument for equal education is that women should have the right to develop their own form of reason without influence from other sources. The importance of developing reason is so that women will not be overly inclined towards emotionalism and develop superficial ways of thinking (46). Since women are uneducated they, unfortunately, blindly submit to men 's power. This leads to another of Wollstonecraft’s points: that marriage is a form of prostitution (48). Wollstonecraft was mocked in her time, but was later recognized as a founder of modern feminism.