Kelli+Greiner


 * May 26, 2011**

Characters- The book __Unbelievable__ by Sara Shepard had four main characters. The first one is Hannah. Hannah is a very popular girl. She struggled with her weight growing up. Before she became popular she decided to lose some weight. She became bulimic. She lost the weight and now she is skinny and popular. Her old habits have started to creep up on her again because she feels like she is getting fat again. Hannah like many other girls in today's society feel like they aren't good enough, or pretty enough, but they just need to be happy with themselves. Another main character is Spencer. Spencer is the straight A, perfect student. When her life becomes hectic she falls behind on her school work. She had one night to write an essay and Spencer knew that she didn't have enough time to write her own so she copied her sister's essay that she had written a few years prior. She turned it in and she thought that it was all over. Then she found out that her essay was being nominated for a prestigious award. Then she had to make a hard decision to either say she plagiarized it or lie and take the award like it was hers. In the end she had to make the hard decision and fess up that it wasn't her essay. Many people have to make difficult decisions like that everyday. The next main character is Aria. She has problems with her family. Her family problems are her parents are separated because her father had an affair. Her father is now living and has that girl pregnant. It is hard for Aria to deal with everything going on. She always thought her parents were really happy. Many people and relate to Aria because many kids have parents that are split up. The last main character is Emily. Emily has been struggling with her sexuality. Deep down she has always known that she was gay, but she was afraid to tell her military parents. They wouldn't take it very well. When she finally decided to tell her parents they didn't take it very well and they sent her to Iowa to live with her cousins. Emily runs away and comes back home and her parents were more excepting. Lots of people can relate to Emily because they might know how they feel but they feel like they can't come out to their parents.

Summary- This book is about the lives of 4 teenage girls. These girls used to be best friends until their leader of the clan disappeared and everyone knew she was murdered. After awhile these best friends stopped talking and grew apart. Then all of them started getting stocked from someone called A. A threatened to tell all of their secrets. These girls came back to being friends again so they could stick together while being taunted from A. Two of them in this book were almost murdered by A because they knew too much. At the end a girl named Mona takes Spencer and tells her that she is A and has been torturing their lives. She drives to a cliff and plans on killing Spencer. But Spencer fights back and Mona falls over a cliff and dies. Spencer returns to her friends and they find out everything that has happened. They live their lives normally for a few weeks thinking that everything is over. At the end of the book there is a letter. I am not going to tell you what it said. But everything isn't back to normal, there is another A ready to start where Mona left off.

Rating- I would rate __Unbelievable__ at a 4. I really like this book because it is funny of mystery and intrigue. I like how it is a series so the story gets to continue throughout 8 books. Halfway through the series and I still am excited to figure out what is going to happen. I would recommend this book to lots of people because this is a story that many people can relate to many of the characters.

Discussions of Classmates' Reading- Holly is reading //Harry// //Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.// That book is in a very good series. I really enjoyed this series when I read it. I am planning on reading the series again this summer before the last half of the last movie comes out. I like re-reading the books before I see the movies so I can compare them and they are fresh in my memory.

Wiki Reflections- I really liked using Wikis to talk about the books we have been reading. Documenting our reading through wikis is better than doing reading logs because we are not forced to read a certain amount every week. Most people lie on what they read in the reading logs so they get credit. By having to talk about our books on our wikis we can read at our own pace and you actually know that we are reading. Me having a busy schedule doing a wiki is so much more convenient to read at my own pace. I think you should continue using wikis as a way of tracking our reading.


 * April 18, 2011**

I am reading the book __Unbelievable__ by Sara Shepard. I finished the book last week. Many interesting, and exciting things happened at the end of this book. You find out more about the Jenna thing and the real people behind it. Also you find out who A is. Hanna's remembers but it's almost too late. A had Spencer and took her to a place to kill her. Spencer and A fight and A falls down a cliff and dies. Before A dies she tells Spencer how she figured out every secret about them. Ian was sent to prison for the death of Alison because he was with Ali the night of her murder. So Ian is in jail until proven innocent. At the very end of the book there is a letter from A. It turns out that there is more than one A to start causing trouble with the girls. I really liked this book because a lot of things happened in this book. It kept me interested the whole time. A lot of things also happened to all the characters, developing them more. I am very excited to start the next book.


 * April 1, 2011**

I am reading the book __Unbelievable__ by Sara Shepard. I haven't been able to read very much this week with tennis practice starting and challenge matches. This week I have read 28 pages. My favorite line in the book that I have read this week was, "She certainly couldn't tell him that for the past two days, she'd been fantasizing that this would happen again. Or that she had an eerie feeling that she'd kissed Lucus before their kiss on Wednesday-only, how was that possible." I think I like this line in the book because I'm a hopeless romantic and I love a good love story. If Hanna would end up with Lucus then it would be a good love story. Hanna always feels so unsure with her feelings. She always wants to fall for people but she never does. I think she doesn't date the boys she wants to is because she doesn't want to lose her social status.

March 25, 2011

The book I chose for this quarter is __Unbelievable__ by Sara Shepard. I picked this book because I watch the show and Morgan recommended it. I'm almost halfway through it. This is the fourth book in the series and there is eight books total. I finished the first three books during spring break. So far in this book Emily gets sent to Iowa because A sends a note to Emily's mom saying the Emily is with Maya. Once Emily gets sent to Iowa she runs away and when she comes home she was excepted by her family for being gay. Hanna has been hit by a car and put in the hospital. They figure out that A is the one that hit Hanna because she knew too much. Spenser is in the run for an essay competition but she didn't write the essay. Her sister did. Spencers family now figured it out and is very mad at her. Aria is having boy troubles. She's dating sean and then she gets back wither old boyfriend which is also her english teacher. One night when she went to Ezra's house Sean found out she was there and called the cops and Ezra was arrested.


 * Final Blog: March 4, 2011**

Characters:

Josie- Josie was one of the main characters. Growing up she had a good friend Peter. As she got older it became embarrassing for her to be friends with him. Around her sophomore year she started dating a really popular boy names Matt. They appeared to be the perfect couple. She became popular because of her relationship. She had many friends. For some reason Josie was always afraid that she wouldn't be popular anymore. At one point she even said her plan b was so commit suicide if she ever wasn't popular anymore. She was one of the main characters throughout the book because she was one that was really effected by the shooting. Her boyfriend Matt was shot right in front of her. After the shooting she had many breakdowns. She heard a car backfire and she shut down and started weeping, because it reminded her of a gun shot. In the books there were many flashs backs about her and her relationship with Matt leading up to the shooting. He relationship with her mother also grew throughout the book. Before the shooting Josie and her mother had a stressed relationship and they fought a lot. But as the trial went on their relationship grew stronger.

Peter- Peter was the school shooter. Growing up Peter was picked on. He was always beat up and humiliated by the people that bullied him. Through the trial his lawyer tried saying that the reason he did all this was because of post traumatic stress from being bullied growing up and the shoot was just when he snap. In one of the flashbacks about a month before the shooting Peter emailed Josie and told her how he felt about her. It was a love note to her because he believe that Josie loved him back because someone made him believe that. It wouldn't have been that big of a deal because Josie would have handled it well. But Josie never saw the letter until it was passed around the school. While Josie was in the shower her friend look at the email Peter had just sent. Then she sent it to Matt, who sent it to the whole school. The next day Peter was beaten up by Matt and got his pants pulled down in front of the whole school. That incident probably was the last straw that made him go into the school and start shooting people.

Alex- Alex was another main character. Alex is Josie's mother. Alex is a single mother and a Superior Court Judge. After the shooting Alex fought really hard to be the judge on the case but she didn't get it. I think that as the case went on Alex was happy that she didn't get it because she wanted to be their for Josie to comfort her. She was an important character because she was always involved somehow. If it was consoling her daughter or falling in love with the lead detective on the case. Alex was developed as a character from when she was pregnant with Josie to when her daughter had to stand trial. Alex developed so much throughout the book.

Matt- Another main Character was Matt. At the beginning of the book you saw Josie and Matt as the perfect couple. But as the book went on you saw Matt in a different light. It showed many flash backs of Matt picking on and bullying many kids, including Peter. He also was abusive to Josie. He had beaten her up on many occasions. Her leg was even broken one time when she was pushed down the stairs. As I was reading I got really upset at all the things Josie had to put up with as she was dating Matt. I wanted to yell at her to just dump him! Josie got pregnant about a month before the shooting. Matt gave her money to get an abortion so no one would find out about the pregnancy. I would have never of thought at the beginning of the book that Matt was this type of person. I think he put off an image that he was a nice boy but only people close to him knew his real personality.

Plot: This story started off with a school shooting. Everyone was frantic and trying to hide from the gun shots. The police show up and cornered Peter in the locker room. They were too late Matt had been shot and Josie was passed out and they were afraid something was wrong with her. They searched the school and brought the injured and dead to the hospital to count how many people were involved. As the story goes on it goes back to before the shooting and shows all the details leading up to it. You find out why Peter got to be the teenager he was and what made him go into the school with guns. Also in the end there is a very big shocking twist that I didn't see coming. I won't spoil it for you because it really makes you speechless at the end of the book.

Rating: I would rate this book a 4. I gave it a four because it is a really good book. I liked how the beginning of the book started out with the climax and then went back and told the story behind it all. I liked how it developed many characters. I knowing the stories behind each person and why it makes that person special to the story. It wasn't a five because it got kind of long in the middle, but the end totally makes up for it. I love the way Jodi Picoult always finishes her books. They always have a shocking ending and always leave you speechless and full of wonder, sometimes disbelief.

Other blogs: I looked at several different blogs and the book I will read for next quarter is the __Pretty Little Liars__ books. Those book interest me because I watched the show on ABC and reading Morgan's blog I figured out that the show is based on these books. I like reading books that have shows and movie that go with them because I like looking at how they cast the people and thinking how weird they look, because that's not the person I pictured in my head. I also love series. I have always liked reading them. I have to read all series in order and can't skip a book or read them out of order.


 * February 10, 2011**

These past few weeks I've continued to to read __19 Minutes__ by Jodi Picoult. I haven't been able to read very much farther because I have been busy, but the part I have read goes back 12 years before the school shooting. The shooters name was Patrick, but at this time in the book he's just starting 1st grade. It talks about situations where Patrick kept being picked on. I think that was told in the story to show how he has always been an outcast, and not just in high school. The one person that befriended Patrick was Alex Cormiers daughter. Josie was sympathetic to Patrick and was nice to him. Josie was one of the people sent to the hospital during the school shooting. Patrick didn't shoot her, but he shoot her boyfriend who was right next to her. She went into shock and doesn't remember anything after the shooting. I think that one of the reasons Patrick didn't shoot Josie too is because deep down he remembered that she was a good person, and was he only friend growing up. The best part of the book so far is having the climax in the first 30 pages in the book, and now learning all the background information now. The worst part of the book is hearing about how many people Patrick killed and injured. To get a different review for [|19 minutes] visit that link.


 * January 27, 2011.**

For my independent reading book I am reading __19 minutes,__ by Jodi Picoult. I got this novel from my house. It was recommended to my by my family. It is my sisters favorite Jodi Picoult book. There are many big characters, but one of the main ones is Alex Cormier. In the first chapter it talks about her job and her daughter josie. It flashes back to the time when Alex is pregnant and she goes to a support group because she's young. Alex and the lady in charge of the meetings become friends and she helps Alex through her pregnancy. Then it flashes back to where Josie is in high school. It just like any other day until a school shooting happens. Many people are hurt and killed. One of the people hurt was Josie. She is in shock and doesn't remember anything about what happened. I like this book so far because I'm not very far in it but the main event has already happened and now the book is going to go back and talk about how everything happened. It is also going to go through the shooting in different perspectives and I like because when you see it through the shooters eyes you have more sympathy for him.


 * January 13, 2011.** Today i created a wikispace account. Hurray!