Samantha’s blog

The book The Wedding is a very good book, about a man who forgets his and his wife’s twenty-ninth wedding anniversary and throughout the book fixes their marriage. When Wilson, the main character forgets the anniversary, it is what makes Jane, Wilson’s wife give up on their marriage problems that have been going on for quite some time. Wilson takes the first couple months after this situation, spending long night thinking about what went wrong and how he caused it. He knew that he loves his wife more than anything in the world, but had not shown it and had been acting like a bad husband for a good part of their marriage. Over the next year, Wilson looses weight, tries to spend more time with Jane and does nice things for her, such as making her a nice dinner a couple times a week. Throughout the next year, or throughout the story of the book, Wilson’s character shows a lot of development. Wilson takes two weeks off work two weeks before their thirtieth wedding anniversary to spend time with Jane, but right as he gets off work on his first day, their daughter, Anna, surprises them by saying that she is getting married to her boyfriend, Keith in two weeks. The day that Anna wants to have the wedding is on the Saturday of Jane and Wilson’s wedding anniversary. They decide to plan the wedding despite the time limit. The planning of the wedding goes on for almost the entire book. On the day of the wedding, as Jane and Wilson wait at the bottom of the stairs, Anna, the bride to be, walks down the stairs in a brides maid dress that matched her sister, Leslie’s. The reader and Jane are very confused at this point. Jane looks around at her son, two daughters and husband for an answer as to why Anna changed out of her wedding gown. This point of the book is at the last chapter and definably the best chapter. This is the part of the books where you are unable to put down the book because it is summing the entire story up. When Jane turns to her husband, he explains to her that while they have been making arrangements with the photographer, florist and catteries, they had actually been planning Jane and Wilson’s wedding. Anna had been pretending with Wilson that it was her wedding so that Jane would get the perfect wedding she had always dreamed of as a surprise.

            This book was incredible, and as I looked back I realized how much Wilson really had changed throughout the story. He went form being a husband who went through the family task to get through them and being obsessed with his work, to doing extra things to make his wife smile and making her fall in love with him all over like she had thirty years prior.

1) Teen Ink- Vanessa E. wrote: “I know I really like a book when I find myself always thinking about it. I was drawn to Girl Interrupted and whatever room I left it in.”

>I agree with what Vanessa said because I was also very interested in this book. I would try to find a minute here and there to read it all day long. I think people like to hear about dramatic stories and most people would agree that this story is dramatic. It was so interesting learning about different mental illnesses that Susanna’s friends had in McLean Hospital. All the adventures and stories capture the readers attention making them eager to read more.

2) The New York Times- Laura Jamison wrote: ”Susanna Kaysen's memoir describes a searing discomfort that doctors were unable to cure.”

> I do not agree with this. Susanna Kaysen was sent to Mclean Hospital because she had an obvious mental problem. The book was about the people and situations that Susanna dealt with during her time there. At the end of the book she was a normal person who had overtime, grown and overcome her illness. At no time did she describe “the searing discomfort that doctors were unable to cure.”

3) Los Angeles Times Book Review- wrote: “ A bitter, funny, insightful memoir… A minimalist relative of One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest, Kaysen’s spare, elegant book raises angry questions about who’s crazy, and who’s in charge of figuring it out.”

> I agree with this because I understand how this book might have raised readers’ questions. As I was reading I was thinking in my head, “what if I am crazy? How could someone just from talking to me determine if I am crazy?”

4) Washington Post Book World- Diane Middlebrook wrote: "An account of a disturbed girl's unwilling passage into womanhood...and here is the girl, looking into our faces with urgent eyes."

>I agree with this, especially when it says, “…girl’s unwilling passage into womanhood”. I think this statement is true because I think part of the reason she was having so many problems was because she could not find herself and was too afraid to grow up. That’s what the hospital helped her do, find herself. When she left the hospital she was an adult and was very stable opposed to when she went into the hospital.

5) Newsweek- wrote: "Tough-minded . . . darkly comic . . . written with indelible clarity."

            > I also agree with this review because different from the average book I read this book was darker and more tough minded. Most of the books I read are fiction and about love and stories and women. Although this book is a woman’s story, it is very different in a positive way.

            The Lovely Bones written about a girl named Susie, who is raped and murdered by her neighbor, Mr. Harvey. Throughout the book, the setting switched from heaven to earth to show how Susie’s family and friends are coping with her murder, and how the murderer covers up his tracks to avoid being caught. When the stories setting is in heaven, Susie is talking about her heaven and how it is different from what she imagined. The way she talks about the things in her heaven that are unique and different to fit her personality allows the reader to use his imagination to imagine his/her perfect heaven. It is very creative how Susie narrates the story from heaven and Sebold does an amazing job portraying the characters feelings in different situations. Her family starts as an ordinary family with little problems and a lot of love. After the enormous tragedy it is interesting to see how something can change a person. Susie’s dad is the strong, main supporter in the family and after loosing his daughter he becomes unstable, and no longer supports his family. He jumps to different conclusions when trying to solve the mystery of who murdered his daughter after the police give up. Susie’s mother who is also a strong supporter in the house becomes insecure and finds ways to fix her loneliness that she would not normally do. Susie’s mother feels alone because her, and her husband’s relationship is distant after the death and she doesn’t have anyone to talk to, or show any emotion to. Susie’s younger sister grows during the period after Susie’s death. She matures because she has to take care of her little brother and because she doesn’t want to show emotions in front of her friends to attract unwanted attention.  From heaven Susie can tell that her sister is growing right before her eyes. Susie’s younger brother is too young to have emotions, but he becomes confused and often asks questions like, “where is Susie at Mommy?” I think this is a good book because no matter what age you are, there is a way for every person to become attached to a character and put themselves in their shoes. Some may not like the book though because it is written slow and besides the first three charters, there is not very much excitement; it’s just a good story that is easy to relate to.is a very creative novel,