A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

Significance- The reason I chose to read this book was because I thought it would have good message in it and it would be interesting to read about what the main character Gemma is going through. And how she handles it. What I think a reader would take from this book is that this is about a girl named Gemma who is very depressed in the beginning because she feels that she is the cause for her mother's suicide. And ever since her mom gave her a special necklace that she alwayswore she has been having this visions of the past, present, and future. Her family used tolive in Bombay, India, and her brother going to school in London and her father and alcholic starts drinking again. they send her to a school in London and she makes friends and she is still secretly feelin horrible. Towards the middle of the book she learns to cope with everything happenig and is not so upset with herself. And by the end of the book she is totally fine and having fun and being happy. So they would take the fact that everybody goes through hard times and eventually gets over it and still live their lives like a normal human being.


Perspective- If I had to explain this to a third grader then I would say that a girl was having an attitude with her mom and threatened to run far away. When she was having the attitude her mom gave her the necklace that she always wore. Then the girl ran away and had a vision that her mom stabbed herself with a knife because their was a very bad dark shadow thing coming after her. When the vision was over she went to the spot where her mom commit suicide. And saw her actually lying there dead. Then her family all went to London, England because, before her mom died they lived in Bombay, India. The girl was sent to a school in England. And she was always very very sad because she thought that she was the reason for her mom killing herself. But in the middle of the book she is still very sad but she is slowly getting happier and happier. And by the end of the book she is happy and can live her life normaly.



Evidance- The argument the author is trying to make is that when you go through a hard time you need people by your side to help you get through that time. And even though they may not know excactly what is going on in your life you should still open up about your feelings. And not lie about what you feel. And that everything is going to be alright. I also think the author is writing about how you react to other poeple helping you or trying to help. And people think that no one can help them and people who think this don't know anything about what is happening to them. And I think that the author wants to try and help people realize this.

Connections- This book connects to the real world because people do really face their own parents feeling depressed and attempting to commit sucide. And you watch that person that you love go through this and it makes you feel horrible and think well what am I doing wrong? And about how many times you probably don't do what this person tells you to do and how you sometimes ignore them and all of it gets to your head and you think that you are one of the main causes your parents or someone you love is doing what they are doing. And that is what the character in the book is going through. And she feels like no one understands. And that is what happens in real life. The only part that doesn't happen in real life is the visions. But that makes her feel more like an outsider. And all that kind of stuff happened in the past it happens now and will continue to happen in the future. But it is sad.

Supposition- If people going through hard times never happened then I think that life would be the same every single day. You would always be happy and never know what feeling bad was or having to struggle or anything. So I think that if no one went through difficult times then everyone would have to not feel. Because bad things will still happen but you just wouldn't feel it. So you wouldn't feel anything else either. If I could change part of it insted of taking the whole thing out then I would do that. I would just make people feel that they aren't the reason why someone did something that was bad. That it was the other person's problem and that they don't need to worry about them being the cause. It is the other person's choice that they made.

Fix by Leslie Margolis

Significance- I think that this work matters because the author is trying to say is that you don't need to have somehting done to you to make you better or prettier. You should feel good about yourself and if you do then you are a beautiful person on the inside and that is what matters. You shouldn't have to get something done to your body to make you feel prettier because you will want more and more. And usually people that get ALOT of plastic surgery done to there body like nose jobs and face lifts they end up looking fake and ugly and you know how much that person cares about how they look. I chose to read this book because it seemed to be interesting and I thought it would have a good message inside it. I think that the author should have been a little more clear on the message because I think someone that didn't know what the message was would end up think that that was an okay way to think.

Perspective- The author of this book ( I think) was against caring so much about what you look like, but thought that you should also care about how you look, but not as much as the caracter in the book. This book was written about to people. Each chapter would change to the other person. One was VERY concerned about her looks. But the other person didn't really care about how she looked. But they are sisters. So the older one had a nose job done at the age of 15. Her younger sister was going to get one also but everyone assumed that she wanted it done. In the end she never gets it done though. If I needed to explain this to someone alot younger than me I would say that there are some people in the world that think that having all the cute clothes and that having a perfect nose and perfect face and everything is important. There is a surgery that can fix that or you. And some people will risk having painful side effects that may or may not last forever, or risk dying just to look better.

Evidence- The reason the author wrote the book was because she wanted teens to know that looks aren't everything. And she wants teens to stop thinking that. The author put alot of information on all of the side affects of having plastic surgery done. Like how the recations for different people are for anesthesia. How someone is barely affected by it and how some people 's body does it do what ever your body does with it and how people die. Even though that hardly ever happens.

Connection- This has affected people since about 700 B.C.E. The Ancient Indians would make skin graphs for reconstructive work as early as the 8th century B.C.E. Ofcourse it wans't like it is today, like not liking your nose and getting it "fixed". This can connect to my life because I am a very self-contious person, but I would never think about going under the knife. Where as I have a very close friend who has a nose that is slightly pointed but she cannot stand that. And I remember a long time ago that she said, "As soon as I am old enough I will get a nose job." I don't know if she still fells that way but I don't want her to think that it is really that important.

Supposition- If plastic surgery was never invented or thought of or anything. Then I would think that there would be less people concerned about how they look. But this would also be not such a good thing because there are people with a cleft palate. That is something that someone would want fixed. So those people would end up going through life with that. But looks wouldn't be as important so it wouldn't matter on how it looked. Or breast reduction surgery where they are causing a women back pain. Or if you have cancer. But plastic surgery should be for functional things and not things that don't need to be done.