Book 3 Review/Final

            The plot of the book, Love Story by Erich Segal, is always stirring with excitement; it constantly makes the reader wonder what will happen next.  This isn't your typical Cinderella love story with a boy and girl who fall madly in love and live happily ever after. Through the evident description of two star-crossed lovers, Segal writes a love story into something that is truly a work of literature.  Melinda Henneberger from New York Times believes that this novel has "…chronicled the fate of star-crossed lovers, the highborn Oliver Barrett IV and the working-class Jennifer Cavilleri, who meet at Harvard, fall in love and, over the strenuous objections of Oliver’s family, marry. She dies, he cries and the story ends." Henneberger’s summary of the book does not seem like your typical love story; it is more of a one of a kind

            The beginning of the book introduces Oliver Barrett IV of Harvard University is at the Radcliffe Library at the same time as Jennifer Cavilleri. Oliver said, "Listen, Harvard is allowed to use the Radcliffe library." Jenny, as Oliver calls her, replies with "I'm not talking legality, Preppie, I’m talking ethics. You guys have five million books.  We have a few lousy thousand."  This scene really shows what the characters are like.  We can tell Jenny is a girl who has great disdain for Harvard people like Oliver.  Segal's work of creating the characters of the book, Jenny and Oliver Barrett IV, and making the plot full of suspense is true genius.  As times goes on, they were starting to be a little nicer to each other and grew closer.  An example is when Jennifer goes to Oliver’s ice hockey games.  Another time they started going out on dates, then they got married.

            After they are married, they had a few fights and a few family-like moments.  One scene, Jennifer met Oliver’s parents and Oliver met Jenny’s parents.  When Jenny met Oliver’s parents, Oliver Barrett III and Oliver had a little fight.  Oliver always believed that his dad is never proud of him and doesn’t love him.  Later on, Jenny and Oliver got into a huge fight.  Jenny ran away, and Oliver searched high and low over town to find her.  When he did, they went on home and continue on with their normal lives.  As the novel continues on; there was an unexpected twist that usually doesn't happen in love stories.  There is a little dramatic irony, when we discover that Jenny will die soon, but she doesn't know.  Oliver is the only person that does.  The doctor told Oliver that Jenny she's getting white cells and platelets and that's what she needs the most.  But she doesn't want antimetabolites at all.  This following quote from the scene gets intense when the doctor said " 'I was simply saying,' Ackerman explained, 'that there's really no way of knowing how long--or how short--she'll linger.' ” This climax brings the reader wanting to find out what will happen next. 

            Throughout the book--specifically before and after they were married--Jenny and Oliver called each other bastard and bit**.  When they called each other that, it is usually out of love not hate.  At the end was the true tear-jerker part, " 'Thanks, Ollie' those were her last words." This moment, Oliver, lost his one and only true love and wife.  A little after that scene, Oliver’s dad shows up at the hospital, he falls into his arms in tears.  When in the beginning of the story they were not fond of each other.  Segal tied the ending up very well and thought out.  It wasn't into something a Nicholas Sparks book would have.

            The main theme of the story is love means not ever having to say you're sorry.  An example is when Oliver's dad apologizes for his lost; Oliver replies with "…love means not ever having to say you're sorry."  Segal's most powerful strength is turning something ordinary into something extraordinary.  One scene example is when Oliver called Jenny on the phone and asked her what if he said he love her.  She replies with you are piece of shi*.  This is extraordinary because usually in love stories they love each other a lot from the beginning to the end.  One weakness is there were few parts that are slow, but majority was fast and exciting.  An example of when it was slow was during the beginning when they were talking at the library.  Truly an amazing novel, it starts from two who defied the obstacle of parental control to become a married couple, before the untimely death of Jennifer. As denoted by the cover, this is one amazing love story.

            To rate this book, I would give it a five-star rating.  The book is a great masterpiece; the most amazing part is he based this off real life.  “In 1970, Mr. Segal told The Times that the novel's basic story came from one of his students at Yale, whose wife had died, and that the model for Jenny was a woman Mr. Segal had dated in his Harvard days.”  This was told by Melinda Henneberger.  In conclusion, I would say Segal is a book Love Story is a true and unordinary book.  And his book should be read and loved by many, it is not a typical love story you would find on shelves, it is a one of kind book.  He definitely earned having this book on New York Times "Best Sellers List".



The Book




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The Movie



The author (Erich Segal)

Top 5 presentation

Truth in Memoir

For a book to be non-fiction it has to completely 100% true.  There can’t be a single false statement, because nonfiction is true, and if there’s a lie than it is not true.  Half truth’s are still considered lies, so it is not oaky to put them in a story.  No, it is not okay Frey or Mortenson to bend the truth in their stories.  We do need lines in stories, I mean without lies we don’t know what we will be reading.  We need to label the line between fiction and non-fiction.  The reason is we would not now what we are reading or have read is fake or real.  It does matter; it would be helpful to a lot of people to have lines between genres. 

Non-fiction is a book, story etc. that is not fake.  By those writers who put in fake information about them doesn’t make it non-fiction.  It makes it a fiction, so fantasy, magic realism etc.  When readers, like myself and you, would want to read a book knowing if it is truly non-fiction.  That brings me to the next topic.

We need lines between what’s fiction (fantasy, dystopia, romance etc.) or fiction (memoirs etc.).  if there is no lines, the readers will have trouble knowing what they read. Certain people like fiction, or non-fiction, or something specific.  If there weren’t labels at books, we would know what we read or what we like to read.  But labels can ruin a person image such as Nicolas sparks.  He is classified as a romance novelist when that is not fully true. 

That is my thought to How true does a book have to be in your mind to be considered non-fiction?   Why?  Are half-truths okay if it’s still a good story? Does it matter if Frey or Mortenson bent the truth to tell their stories? Is David Shields right?  Do we need lines between genres—do we need to label something fiction or non-fiction?  Why does it matter?

Readicide

Is Genre Fiction less “worthy” than Literary Fiction of our time as readers?  Is it less worthy of a place in a school’s curriculum?

No, Genre Fiction is more worthy during this time as readers.  We can relate more to Genre Fiction than Literary Fiction.  Genre Fiction is more current time and more interesting that Literary Fiction.  However, you can learn more from Literary Fiction books.  They should place both in the curriculum of the school.  The reason is they are both from different times so the lessons from the book can be important.  For example, Macbeth and Hunger Games, they are both similar.  They both want to be the top authority, Hunger Games you fight to the death.  In Macbeth he kills Banquo, King Duncnan, and Malcoms family.  They both want to be king/winner from the games.

What should a 21^st century English class reading list look like?

21^st Century books should looks like a mix of Genre and Literary Fiction.  If it’s just Literary, kids will hate reading, because it lacks their interest of the book.  But if it’s just Genre, the message won’t be as big as the literary books.  That why to make kids read more actively, you have to mix the books the English teachers teach in school

The Hunger Games Trailer

Adapting Book 2

Some challenges the author would have putting the book in the big screen is, finding the actors that fit the characters in the book.   If certain characters let’s say has a certain hair style, or look.  If the actor that chooses to be her is different, the actor may have to change to be the character. 

Three scenes that are essential to keep are when they are at the arena with the 12 districts, or 24 kids, and fight to the death.  This is important because this is the climax of the book, this is where everything happens.  Cutting it out will be a horrible decision.  Also when Katniss volunteered as tribute for her younger sister Prim.  This part is the main reason why Katniss is in the Hunger Games.  If this were to be out then, the movie would not make sense and it would not go with the book.  Lastly, the scene when Katniss try to overthrow the government.  This scene is important because this is where they try to not let kids fight to the death and waste their lives. This is the semi-climax (sorta climax, little below it).  If this were to be taken out we would not know whether or not there be more Games in the future. 

The scenes they can cut out are the preparation for the arena, such as the dressing up parts.  This part may not be intriguing for boy viewers.  This scene is all dressing up, looking beautiful for sponsors etc.  a guy might not like this scene of the movie.  Also, they can cut out the beginning when Gale and Katniss are in the woods.  That is not important how she and Gale are in the woods.   

Book 1 Project

An idea to make Everlost a more popular book is to make it into a movie that is closely similar to the book.  Since a lot of books became popular from movies, such as the Harry Potter series and the Hunger Games series, if there was a movie for the book Everlost, the book would be popular too.  To get more people to watch the movie so the book can get popular, the movie actors can be the popular actors or new actors.  Typically, popular actors get more viewers since they are more famous than the new actors; also they have more experience with acting.       

There are a lot of scenes in the book that will be eye-catching to viewers of the movie.  Some scenes we could use are, their arrival in Everlost, leaving of Everlost, and some important people, good and bad, they meet along the way.

The arrival begins after the car crash and when the kids, Nick and Allie, woke up from a deep and long sleep.  When they woke up, they woke up to a boy they named Lief.  Lief waited day and night, trying his best to wake them.  Lief explained they were in Everlost, a place between life and death, in other words they were ghost.  But the proper word is called Afterlights.  He also explained they can only stand on dead spots, spots where a death occurred.  Non dead spots are bad places to stand because they will drown and end up in the Earth’s core.  “He didn’t tell them how every day for nine months he kicked and prodded them, and hit them with sticks hoping it would jar them awake”.   They came to conclusion that it made sense for a person to be nine months to be born; it would also take nine months to be dead.  (Shusterman 18)

The characters they met along the way are well known.  Mary, the leader of the group she owns to keep kids in Everlost safe and happy.  Allie, Nick and Lief traveled there, hoping to find answers and trying to find a way out of Everlost.  Allie didn’t get along too well with Mary.  Lief didn’t speak to Mary that much, because he was playing Pac-man in the basement.  He would do it every day; this would eventually be a system for him.  A repetition of the same thing you do continuously is called a niche.  It isn’t hard to get into one but, it’s hard to get out of one.  Nick was very fond with Mary.  When Nick and Mary were alone, Mary talked about her story about her first arrival in Everlost.  The loss of Mary’s brother touched Nick’s heart, so he leaned in for a kiss.  “Then he leaned toward her, and he kissed her”.   (Shusterman 101)

Another character is the Haunter and the McGill.  They both are bad guys in this book.  The Haunter knows how to connect with the real world.  “He can show you how to move things in the living world, make yourself heard to the living-and maybe even seen”. (Shusterman 111)  The McGill captures kids and uses them as a slave. Majority of them were hanged in the bottom of his ship.  “They swung like pendulums as she pushed through them, all of them grumbling and gripping at having been disturbed.  She tried to be gentle, but the forest of dangling spirits clearly did appreciate her intrusion” (Shusterman 196)

Later on the story, they found a way out of Everlost.  Everyone got a coin when they have arrived Everlost.  But in the beginning they were told to make a wish and drop it in a fountain in front of Mary’s house before entering.  They saw a girl, Meadow, disappear holding her coin.  “Then Meadow ran toward the fountain, jumped in, and a moment later she was gone”.  (Shusterman 309)

I think using a movie for making Everlost a popular book will work because, most books to all books became popular from successful movies of the books.  Showing the movie gives an idea to the audience what the book is about and whether or not the book fits their interest.   People read books and later found out it wasn’t what they like or what they are interested in.  Showing the movie shows the audience the style and the kind of book it is.  So before reading the book and wasting the time doing so, the movie can show you without wasting your time.  If the audience likes the movie, they would probably read the book.  Thus, making the book more popular, which is the goal.  

MOVIE POSTER