Final Exam: Forever in Blue Review

Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood, by Ann Brashares, is the fourth book of the series of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Through the use of realistic fiction, Ann Brashares reminds readers of the price put upon friendship. The author depicts the story of four young girls that form a sisterhood as their lives grow further apart.

Ann Brashares allows the dialogue and character’s actions to do the talking. Dialogue plays a big part in the plot and realizations typically occur when they are talking it out with each other. When the characters aren’t talking, which is almost never, details fill the pages of the book. The focus of the detail is more on the physical description of what each character is doing, and less on the setting. “[Lena] had a feeling she could not name exactly, but one she knew she had not had in relation to the Pants before. She had felt gratitude, admiration, trust. What she felt now still contained all that, but tonight it was mixed in with a faint taste of desperation.” The way the narration is said makes it seem like a teenage girl is actually telling the story. The sisterhood consists of four girls. There is Carmen- the force of nature, ranging from a quiet drizzle to a raging tornado. Carmen moved into a dorm room of an Ivy League school where she revives her big personality. There’s Lena- the hermit crab of the group that finds herself in and out of love. Lena enrolls in a prestigious art school, and finds herself climbing out of her hermit shell more and more often. There’s Bridget- the wild one with a fierce personality and will to compete. She moved to Turkey for an archeology exhibition for the summer. And there’s Tibby- the tom boy of the group with a big heart, and a soft spot for her sisterhood. Tibby begins to shelter herself more as she lives in a dorm for a school that teaches their students about movie making. Each girl of the sisterhood are honest and loyal to one another, and always keep in touch. Well- maybe up until this book that was true. With high school over and their first year of college beginning, each character begins to go their separate ways. The development of the characters were done well; all of their career choices made sense when it came to their personality and aspirations in life.

The purpose of the sisterhood that Lena, Tibby, Carmen, and Bridget created was so that they would not lose sight of one another as their lives grow apart. They brought in The Pants because they felt that it would keep them more connected as they went moved away from home. Throughout the book, there is a big emphasis put on their friendship. Although this is the theme, the characters seem to devalue friendship and the bond between each other as their lives start moving faster. For the characters, it was like eating an entire cake. People love the idea of eating it, just as the characters had loved the idea of their friendship and staying close as friends. At first, the person is in love with the cake at first bite and wants more and more. This would be the part where the girls decide they will always be best friends, even when they are apart. The person starts to think it will be easy to eat this entire cake since they love it so much. That would be when the characters find it easy to keep in touch with one another. But as the person progresses with eating the cake, that retched stomach ache begins to creep in on them. That is the part when the characters find themselves trying not as hard to maintain their friendship as their new lives start to fall into place. By the time the person reaches a little over half way with this cake, the stomach ache is in full force, and the person has no choice but to stop. The girls loved their friendship, but with their lives moving forward as they live apart, it becomes harder and more difficult for them to stop for a moment and go back to the idea of staying connected. Bridget came to this point when she had to wake up early in Turkey to find internet connection and email back her friends. For the person eating the cake, and for the characters, after the spot over the half way mark, staying close friends and finishing the cake just becomes a nuisance.

As the girls seem like they’re at the point of no return and begin to lose their friendship, something unlikely happens. The Pants that bonded them together went missing in Greece. In a twist of fate, the Pants, once again, reinforced the character’s bonds. This reinforced the idea of friendship as each girl came together for the first time in the entire book. As the “hello’s” and “hey’s” began to flood out after months of no contact with each other, they realized the symbol of Pants; friendship. “[The Pants] came to us to keep us together, and we were using them to help us stay apart… We counted on them too much.” That was a clever little trick on Ann Brashares’ part.

Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood, earns 5 out of 5 stars. The book combines everyday life with the elements of a love story, friendship, and adventure in exploring new things. Ann Brashares deserves an applause for her dedication to her realistic-fictional characters.

Book Talk presentation

Book 2 Trailer

Blog Post #5

For a book to be considered non-fiction, it has to be totally and completely 100% true. That is what the whole point of a non-fiction is- a true story. Then there's the other side to the story where non-fiction could still be considered true even if it's not 100% accurate and truthful. Its similar to posing this question: If a person most always tells the truth, and the person only tells one important lie, does that make the person worthy of trust and the title of being honest? Most people would answer no- but that may only be done out of fear because they, themselves, do just that- tell mostly the truth, and a lie or two in between, and they too fear not being considered honest. So if we cannot expect 100% truthfulness and honesty from one of our peers, and ourselves, then why should we expect an author, who is also human, to feel the need to tell 100% of the truth 24 hours of each day, 7 days a week? I think its a good idea to approach a memoir with the mindset of: dishonest until proven honest. That way, when you finish the memoir and realize that most of the words in there were fake and made up, you won't be all that surprised.
With Fray, I think readers were more disappointed than anything. The reader picked up the book and read the title thinking that they would be reading an honest book about a person's exciting life. What the reader actually got was a book of mostly-lies. I too would be disappointed and frustrated.
Everybody labels everything because humans judge. You may try to not to judge others and certain objects- like books- but that's pretty much impossible. You yourself judged if you should become friends with a certain person, judged who you should sit next to, and judged which blogs to read.
All of this is inevitable- lying, judging, and labeling.

Blog Post #4

The Perks of Being a Wallflower would be a very easy book to adapt. But if they left out a few of these scenes, I would be concerned about the legitimacy of the movie based off the book. If the movie left out the scene in which Charlie, the main character, ate "special" brownies, not knowing the "special" ingredient, it would leave out the much-needed comic relief. The movie cannot leave out the scene from the book, when Charlie and his friends, Patrick and Sam, drove into a tunnel and he said out loud "I feel infinite." This scene would add to the dramatic feel to the movie, and give off the impression that Charlie was finally realizing that he belonged, and how he wanted to live in that moment forever. The last scene that could not be left out, is the scene that takes place during Christmas time, and then Charlie reads a poem out loud to his group of friends. At first the poem begins with a young and happy child, but ends with a suicidal teenager. Important parts of the book made references to the poem. Not only is the poem important for future reference, but also the fact that the poem is dramatic, and depressing, as well as thought provoking to other characters.

   

Some parts of the book would be seen as too controversial to be put in a movie. One scene that may or may not be cut out because of the controversy behind it, is the scene in which Charlie goes with his sister to get an abortion. Another hard scene of the book to incorporate would be the narration style. In the book, Charlie tells what happens and everything in past tense, and there are usually very few pieces of dialog; so to make it work, the movie could have background narration and dialogue, but it wouldn't be the same as the writing style of the book. I think that they cannot cutout Charlie's voice in the narration, because in the book, you only hear Charlie re-telling all that had happened to him, and only his voice is heard.

Book 1 Project

           Following the ending to John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, John Green has agreed to create an epilogue for the fans whose curiosity lurks after the sudden cliff hanger as the ending. As a gift to all the faithful fans, John Green contributed the exclusive and limited edition epilogue, as well as the bright blue t-shirt with a single black and white cloud, similar to the front cover, but with the words inside of the clouds reading “Okay.” Also included in the gift basket is the recently found journal entries of Augusts Waters on his last few weeks on earth.

            The first time Hazel and Augustus repeatedly said “okay” to one another, they figured that it would be their own personal way of saying ‘I love you.’ The first time their version of ‘I love you’ was used, was when Augustus revealed that his first girlfriend died of a brain tumor. The word “okay” is sentimental to readers because those few words were used during times filled with high emotions. There was the time when Augustus decided he would use his single Wish from the Genie Foundation for Hazel and him to go to meet their favorite author. The last night of Augustus being healthy, Hazel and he shared a glass of champagne while they were on their trip in Amsterdam to meet the author. As they took their first sips, they repeated “okay” to one another. As Augustus’ days living a life on earth dwindled down to only a few days left, he wrote to the favorite author of Hazel and Augustus, who was actually an alcoholic. Augustus scolded Van Houten, the troubled author, saying that Van Houten was a “[crappy] person but a good writer.” Augustus defended Hazel, saying that, “she is so beautiful [and that] you don’t get tired of looking at her,” and how worthy she is of life. He wrote the letter to Van Houten in secret – it was never revealed why it was written and sent off without anybody knowing, but that is what happened. It was figured out that Augustus had written something down because there were leftover tear marks in the binding of the blank pages. Hazel and Augustus’ parents had figured that the only pages torn out were sent to Van Houten. The final pages of the book were heart wrenching, and ended abruptly, finishing directly after Hazel had read the journal entries sent to Van Houten. This left readers questioning the ending, for how much longer did Hazel live for, did Hazel ever find love again, did Van Houten ever create an epilogue for Hazel, did Augustus’ parents stay together even after his death? The readers understand that the ending to The Fault in Our Stars is supposed to be a real life version of the book that Van Houten wrote, in the sense of the ending to Van Houten’s book. Hazel had wondered the same questions that the readers would experience at the end of The Fault in Our Stars. Hazel, herself, even asked, “what happened to the characters at the end of the book?” and Hazel demanded that she “needs to know what happened to [the main character].”

            All of these exclusive gifts to the faithful fans will be available to the incoming fans who have discovered the book and love it too. The words “okay” are sentimental to the readers because it was Hazel and Augustus’ shipping slogan- they said it all the time. A continuation of the ending to The Fault in Our Stars would soothe the curiosity of the readers, which is why the epilogue will be included in the gifts. The last few writings of Augustus were legendary, the final piece of his writing was the last page of the book, and led readers to wonder what was going on in Augustus’ mind when he decided not to write to Hazel, or his siblings, or his parents, but to an alcoholic writer. That is why John Green also agreed to create another continuation of The Fault in Our Stars that consisted solely of Augustus’ final journal.  

Post #2

What is a book?

     A book is another dimension. The portal, or the way into that other dimension, is by opening the cover. The idea has already been implanted into the book, the setting has already been set, the character's personality already determined- but the reader has the decision of the coloring or size of the setting, and the way the character moves as they speak with their pre-determined personality. The book itself can even have personality- the color, and size of the text of the cover, and the font of the title. On a black and white or gray screen- that personality of the book becomes obselete. No longer is there a need for color and fun font and font sizes because it has all been sized down to the absolute minimum- a screen with words.

     A book is like baking a cake. You see what it looks like in the cook book, that part is the idea of the book. There are some things in a cake and book that are predetermined. For a book, its the style of introduction, the plot, and the twist ending. For the cake, its the temperature you set the oven to, and the ingrediants that go into the batter. Once the batter is put into the pan, and the words are printed onto the pages of the book, it is put into the oven and fed to the mind of the reader. The oven is your mind- cultivating the cake until it is done all the way till the end, watching the cake rise like reading the rising actions to get to the climax of the story, and filling the cake with air- your own personal touch to the story by picturing the characters not as others think, but as the reader wants. Once the cake has reached the end, the timer of the oven goes off, meaning that it is time for the mind to move onto the next book and next step of finally finishing off the book. The decorations on the cake is the part of reflection of the characters that most every reader does once a book is finished. The icing on the cake and is the different emotions felt not only by the character, but also by the reader. When the direction of the icing changes- from going around the cake to moving up and down with from following the motion of the batter knife, the batter knife represents the emotion of the character, and the icing is the emotion of reader. When the emotion of the character changes, so does the emotion of the reader. The sprinkles shaken onto the top of the cake represent the tears that were shed when one of the characters had passed away in the book, or when they came to a life altering decision that took an emotional toll on their mental state of mind.
Through a black and white text, lack of smell to the pages, and lack of an actual feeling to the cover of a book- all of that meaning, all of that cake, becomes meaningless.