Post 7 book 4 reflection

Divergent by Veronica Roth

This is a letter form Tobias talking to Tris about her actions being the hero.

To Tris,

I know that we have become really close over the years and you are known as the hero in the story, but you make stupid decisions. You think of yourself as the epic hero of your own story. You think of others in mind before you think of yourself. It’s like when you went to erudite as a self-sacrifice for the others in our faction, as a divergent. You only thought of the people your were saving but in reality you were only killing yourself. Once you gave yourself to the erudite they tortured you to the point of no return, they told you would be killed once they were done testing on you. Why did you go through with it, how did you not try to find a way to survive? I think you are more of a tragic hero, and you need enlightenment about your fatal flaw.

The only reason I’m writing this is to ask why you don’t care for yourself. I care for you so much that after you sacrificed yourself, I had to do the same, since I can’t live without you. After that I am part of the reason you made it out of erudite headquarters alive, I mean I had the help of Peter (one of your enemies) who turned out to actually save you. But you didn’t even try. It hurts that you have no care for your own life. You are a very important person in my life and I don’t know what I would do without you.

I see how you affect other around us. They really listen to you and really go out of their way for your opinion. Now that everyone knows that you are openly a divergent, they think more of you. They think that you have a better view on things than they do in comparison. But you went against all of us trying to get that information. After I fought to get you out of erudite you fight your way back in. We went to attack them to run them down, and you wanted to save them. You went to save that information. I know I changed my mind in the end, but you still fought against the people that were by your side in the beginning. I just wish you would’ve trusted me with your plan, maybe I could’ve helped you out. I know my judgment was clouded but it seems you don’t trust me.

I wish I didn’t have to tell this to you in a letter. But it is just so hard to talk to you lately. Now that things have changed and have taken a total 180. I hope this will make you think of what you have done and change. I think you can still the epic hero of your story. But you need to change in order to be the hero that you want to be. I think this will be really easy for you to do with the new information that we learned.

I really think everyone will be looking at you directly. Now that we know that you are the directly related to the person that put us in here. I don’t know how people will react to this information but I know that all eyes will be on you. You need to be careful with you actions that you make, you need to put more thought into what you are going to do. What you do will affect everyone around you. Please do it for me.

Stay Safe Tris,

Tobias Eaton

Post 10 reading wishlist

Sabrina's bookshelf: to-read

The Maze Runner

by James Dashner

tagged: to-read

If I Stay

by Gayle Forman

tagged: to-read

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

by Jennifer E. Smith

tagged: to-read

We Were Liars

by E. Lockhart

tagged: to-read

Allegiant

by Veronica Roth

tagged: to-read

An Abundance of Katherines

by John Green

tagged: to-read

What I Thought Was True

by Huntley Fitzpatrick

tagged: to-read

The Boy Most Likely To

by Huntley Fitzpatrick

tagged: to-read

The Giver

by Lois Lowry

tagged: to-read

Boy's Life

by Robert McCammon

tagged: to-read

Post 9 book 2 trailer

Post 8 book talk presentation

Post 6 listicle

The book Divergent is a very good read. The author has a well thought out writing style that creates her own world. Veronica does a very great job of making her own world for this book. She is very detail oriented, the many things she writes make this book a good one.

1 – The world that she creates is so intricate

In Divergent, Veronica Roth build up from what we know today as, and brings more to that knowledge. The way she creates the ideas that her dystopian world is very innate. The book is set in the future, where the story is all localized in the destroyed present day Chicago. In the beginning of the book it is very descriptive that it allows the reader to jump into the plot, without confusion. You have to grasp the concepts that she creates to understand everything that goes on through the book. She keeps on building on these concepts through the book, making it more intricate.

2 – The author creates how the new society is run

With the destruction of the world, everything is changed to create peace in the environment in the book. The author creates factions in this world that create the order for the city. These factions are the soul idea that is keeping the society in order. The idea that everyone should follow the ideas of their own faction. The factions are split up to be different from the others, creating that division in the unison to keep the peace that is wanted. The factions rely on each other though as resources.

3 – The specific detail that go into each faction

In the book you see the main character go from one faction to another. You can see the dramatic changes in ideals from on to the other. I like the way the author does this with her story, showing the inside of more than one of the factions. The way you can see that each faction has their own jobs, and stick strictly to that idea. You can see that the author thought through all the questions the readers would have with each of the factions. She answers all of them in her writing and makes all of her ideas very clear.

4 - Surprises and conflict between the factions that is brought through

 You can see the outside view of the factions too. Tris shows the viewpoint of the inside but also shows the more broad view of the factions. Since she is divergent she is able to think differently compared to the others in their society. The way veronica uses her to show that her brain is different than everyone else is very clever. This is the main conflict in the society, and how they are afraid of the people that think differently. The divergent are what can make the society lose all of its order.

5 – There is detail that goes into the main character

Tris the main character has so much going on with her. She has personal conflict inside her and wanting to be free. This is her being divergent but she doesn’t really understand this yet. But she thinks she can suffice this feeling by changing her faction. For the time being that does her good, but it all continues. As she becomes very good at her new faction people soon look at her differently, the way she isn’t used to. She has so much to deal with in the book that it gets confusing.

Veronica Roth’s book it very well written. Although it gets confusing at points I really admire what she has written. She has put in so much detail into her writing it is incredible and I think that is really interesting.   

Post 5 genres

I think that books have to be about 80% true. I feel like that would be a happy medium to define a book between nonfiction and fiction. I say 80% because then this gives the author some room to embellish events that actually happened. But that’s all they should do, just embellish the story to a certain extent of it still being true and believable. The author should be able to throw random events into the story just to make it more entertaining to the reader. Yes, it may make the story easier/better to read, but it gives a false idea to the reader. I feel the half-truths are okay, to a certain point of believability. The half-truths to me are the author’s way to make an event be pictured in my mind better. The authors are trying to make it stand out in my mind, and they usually do a good job at it.

I agree with David Shield, saying that there does need to be a fine line between genres. I think that every book was written to have no genre, then they would just all end up being very similar. I also think it’s helpful to the readers, like the people who like to only read a certain genre. With the genre label then you know sort of what to expect out of the book, like if this actually happened to some or if it came straight to their imagination. I feel that’s important to put that information out there.

Post 4 book adaptations

If I were a director of creating an adaptation of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak I would make it into a musical/play. As I am reading this book I think that form of adaptation would be the best. I think it will help the book portray emotion better and make it have more to the story.

In the book I would keep out the small details that don’t affect the plot, like a lot of the kids she plays with. I would take out the part with Rudy and when he gets into trouble reenacting the Jesse Owens scene. This scene Rudy, Leisel’s best friend paints himself black and act like the runner after the actual runner won the race at the Olympics. This scene is important to the characterization of Rudy, but not particularly to the plot of the whole story. I would also take out the scene/ character of when she meets the mayor’s wife and how she allows Leisel read in their library. Although it hasn’t made much importance in the book yet, so I don’t know where the writer is going with by adding these scenes/ characters into the story.

I would although keep some of the scenes where Rudy and Leisel interact. Like when the students are asked to be tested in front of the class by reading out loud. He encourages her to read in front of everyone and try to show them that she is smart, even though she doesn’t do as well as she thought she could. Also I think when they are stealing from the farms and how it shows how the kids go hungry during the world war. It helps to keep to the viewer’s mind that the war is affecting everyone. Also the main part of the plot of how papa is teaching her to read through the long nights with Leisel. I would also keep all of the interactions of Leisel and Papa, where is talking about the nightmares and her beginning to learn to read. Also I would keep the majority of interactions of Leisel and Max, showing what it was like for Leisel and the family what it was like to be hiding a Jew in their basement during the time of WW2.

The cast for this is critical to understand the whole story. The cast will need to portray the characters to a deeper level than just looks. They need to be accurate to the fine detail, for the people who have read the book to stay true, and also for those who haven’t read the book to express the detail that’s written to be able to visual the depth of each character. They also need to have amazing voices, since this adaption is a musical. They will need to be able to also live the lifestyle of how these people lived at this time in the book. It would be great for them to get into character at the time and be able to have the mindset of being alive in the time of WW2 even though we are filming it today.

 The soundtrack needs to be written by the best classical composer. They need to be older and more experienced. The composer will need to capture all the under toning emotion that is in the story into their music and they will need to be able to make the viewer understand the mood just from listening to the music. The music will have its own story to tell, it will go along with the story, but it will have to also do it on its own. It has to be able to change the viewer’s emotions, like giving them goose bumps by just listening to it. Some of the soundtrack will be directly sang by the cast and the other part will be under the talking of the cast or to fill in the quiet areas of the musical.

The musical will need to be able to capture the time period that it’s in and make it vital to the story. Since WW2 is still talked about from the war stand point today, it need to do a better job of showing how its point of view of the common people around the war. It need to show the world that was going on around the war. It also needs to stay accurate to what was actually happening. It will have to follow the actual timeline of the war, as a side note. Every one that will be helping or working on this movie will need to have a well suited background with the war, like having an understanding of at least what was going on. This will make it easier to create and also make it easy to portray the setting of the story, since the war was the main point to the story, as almost everything revolved around it.