Wednesday, January 15, 2014

The Stolen Party is a book about classism. Rosaura is poor because her mother is poor. The difference between her and her mother is that Rosaura has a way out of poverty because she is doing well in school. Rosaura goes to a rich friends birthday party where her mother works. She is asked to help serve food and drink thought the party. At the end instead of a gift from the goody-bag, she is given money as payment for helping. Rosaura is angry about this.

Rosaura wants to be an equal to her rich friends but as it mentions in the book she slips unseen from the party multiple times. This shows how little care they give her and is an allusion to how little some rich people care about those with less money. She is also raised differently then many of the other rich kids. She lives a life in which she is physically active when apparently the others do not. This becomes clear when she wins many of the party games. This is an allusion the the "Idle Rich."

  Senora Ines, Luciana's mother sees Rosaura as nothing more then a copy of her mother. (Luciana is Rosaura's rich friend.) Senora Ines sees Rosaura as another low class "peasant" to work for her. She has Rosaura serve Luciana's rich friends by giving them hot dogs, orange juice, and cake. Senora Ines fails to see Rosaura as an equal even though Rosaura is smart. (It says in the book that Rosaura is in the top of her class.) This book is trying to say that we need to look past net worth, and stock options, and see what is really inside of a person before we judge them.


Sunday, January 5, 2014

My favorite book of 2013 was "Looking for Alaska." "Looking for Alaska" is about a boy names Miles who goes to boarding school for his Junior year of high school. He becomes close friends with three other juniors named the Colonel, Takumi, and Alaska. They go on several adventures until half way through the book Alaska dies. The remainder of the book is about Miles ans the Colonel trying to figure out why Alaska died.

I really enjoyed "looking for Alaska" because of the characters and their interactions. John Green clearly spent a long time developing the characters before he started writing. The evolve through out the book and their interactions evolve along with them. The dialogue is smart and fun. The setting and description really tie the book together. The whole book was well planed and well written.