An Abundance of Katherines (part II)

 Hi, everyone! This is the last reading log. It's the same book as log 5, An Abundance of Katherines. 

Book Intro

    This book was written by John Green. The author has another famous book called “The Fault in Our Stars.”, which I think is more familiar to most of you. It also adapted to movie in 2014. The main character in ”An abundance of Katherines” is Colin Singleton. When it comes to relationships, Colin’s type happens to be girls named Katherine. Not Kate, Katie, or Catherine, it must be K-A-T-H-E-R-I-N-E. He had dated nineteen girls, all of them had been named Katherine. And all of them, every single solitary one—had dumped him!

    The summer of senior high graduation, Colin was dumped by the nineteenth Katherine. In order to get rid of the pain, Hassan, Colin’s friend, suggested to have a road trip. Then they embarked on a journey without destination. During the journey, Colin gave himself a task. Using the past experience to create a formula to predict the future of one relationship.

Reflection

    I finally finished this interesting book! Maybe not everyone had the chance to be in a relationship. But after reading the experience of Colin's failure, I could realize something. First, the main character, Colin, was born to be a genius. However, though he was very talented, he was still bad at love. I believed that god is fair. Everyone wouldn't be perfect, there must be some flaws in your personality. Second, in the book, Colin created a formula to calculate love. Actually, love is more difficult than a math problem. There isn't a standard answer to love. In a relationship, you need to understand the identity of your partner and try to fulfill his/her needs. Every successful relationship must undergo many frustrations. If you were Colin, your relationship may be more unpleasant.

    What I like about this book the most is the description way of the love. Use math formula as a metaphor of love. It makes the book more interesting and impressive to read. At first, I don't even think that I will read about math in a novel. XD (Because I'm not good at math, I hate it.)  The book also gave me the hope about creating our own future. There are lots of probability in the future because we can't predict it. Like Colin, in the end, he realized that he couldn't limit by those Katherines. He could find out other perfect people with other beautiful names, not only Katherines. In conclusion, this is a warm and humorous book. And I recommend it to those who just finish one relationship, maybe it'll be a comfort to you! :)

An Abundance of Katherines

    Welcome to my log 5! This semester, I choose three books to read and write my reading log. This is the last book, "An Abundance of Katherines". I was looking for my last book in the library. And suddenly I was attracted by the cover of this book. Also, the book title was extraordinary. I google the book for introduction, then I realized this is a book about love. It has a nice book cover and pretty good content. So, I decided to borrow the book from the school library! 

Book Intro

    This book was written by John Green. The author has another famous book called “The Fault in Our Stars.”, which I think is more familiar to most of you. It also adapted to movie in 2014.

    The main character in ”An abundance of Katherines” is Colin Singleton. When it comes to relationships, Colin’s type happens to be girls named Katherine. Not Kate, or Katie, or Catherine, it must be K-A-T-H-E-R-I-N-E. He had dated nineteen girls, all of them had been named Katherine. And all of them, every single solitary one—had dumped him!

    The summer of senior high graduation, Colin was dumped by the nineteenth Katherine. In order to get rid of the pain, Hassan, Colin’s friend, suggested to have a road trip. Then they embarked on a journey without destination. During the journey, Colin gave himself a task. Using the past experience to create a formula to predict the future of one relationship.

Reflection

    Actually, I only read 10 chapters until I write the log. So I would basically write about the first 10 chapters. In the beginning of the book, it was the morning after Colin graduated and was dumped by the nineteenth Katherine. Colin took a bath. It seemed to be the best way for him to escape, escaped from the melancholy. The author mostly write about the interaction between Colin and his family. His parents sat together on his bed, waiting to comfort Colin's bad mood. I probably understand how painful the break-up is. Because many friends would come to me and complain about her ex-boyfriend. I think the author is very good at describing people's emotions. I can feel the same when reading his text. It really puts me into the situation. Also, when you break up with someone, it's critical to find a person to talk to. In the book, Hassan came to comfort Colin. Try his best to make Colin laugh. Finally Colin's mood is getting better because of the companion of Hassan. Friends are always important in our life. Imagine this, if you're under lots of sorrow but no one can listen to you and help you share the feelings, isn't that pathetic? 

TH1RTEEN R3ASONS WHY (part II)

This is my second part of the reflection, about 13 reasons why. I'm going to discuss the teenagers' suicide problem in this log. Also, I want to point out the issues of peer bullying. 

Book Intro

Hannah Baker is a high school student who suicided because of being bullied in the school. More specifically, Hannah's classmates spread rumors about her, laughed at her, excluded her from the class, what's worse, she was once raped. Hannah used 7 tapes to record the 13 reasons why she ended her life. There will be 13 people in the recording. Hannah explained about what role that person plays in her death. 

Reflection

In the previous log, I talked about some features of the book and the importance of helping. This time, I'd like to focus on the problem of teenage suicide, which is the biggest issue in this book. In the novel, Hannah is bullied by her classmates, so she chooses to kill herself. And I think this is also a serious problem that usually happens in real life. We see many news reports that there are students who jumped off a building. This may be because their peers isolate them or are under a lot of pressure. Actually, as a teenager, we cared about our peers very much, even sometimes more than our family. At this young age, our mentalities are not mature enough. One word or one action can have a big influence on our minds. That's why so many unfortunate things happened. People usually say that those who commit suicide are very selfish or don't cherish their lives. They don't think about their family or people who still love them. However, in my opinion, if I were Hannah, I won't care about other people. I know that's selfish, but I was painful and suffering. I will choose to end my life and release myself rather than live tragically. We don't know how desperate they were when most people decided to die. We can't keep blaming suicide people, and we should try to think from their perspective. We meet many setbacks and failures in our life. If we can turn them into motivation and continue life, that will be better.  

This is the #1 NEW YORK TIMES and international bestseller; I highly recommend this book to teenagers. Maybe after reading this novel, there will be some changes or inspirations. I read the comments on my last blog post, many classmates have read 13 reasons why before. This is really a popular novel! I will try to watch the NETFLIX series when I have spare time. I hope that the series will make me feel something different from the book.

TH1RTEEN R3ASONS WHY (part I)

"You can't stop the future. You can't rewind the past. The only way to learn the secret... is to press play."

This is the best quote to describe the novel. And it's also printed on the back cover of the book. When you read this quote at first sight, you may be curious about the meaning. After you finish the book, you'll soon understand the message behind it.

Book Intro

Hannah Baker is a high school student who suicided because of being bullied in the school. More specifically, Hannah's classmates spread rumors about her, laughed at her, excluded her from the class, what's worse, she was once raped. Hannah used 7 tapes to record the 13 reasons why she ended her life. There will be 13 people in the recording. Hannah explained about what role that person plays in her death. 

Reflection

Actually, this book also adapted to TV series in 2017. In fact, I want to watch it on NETFLIX, but I heard from my friends that this drama is a little bit scary. (Because there's some suicide and rape scenes.) So I decide to read the novel first. XD 

Hannah's classmates didn't know their words and behaviors will do harm to her until they got the tapes. These people think that their behaviors are harmless, however, it does influence Hannah's life. We all need to speak and act cautiously, otherwise we easily hurt someone unintentionally. 

There's a special feature in this novel, the author wrote about Hannah's recording and at the same time described the reaction of Clay, Hannah's classmate who received the 13 tapes first and also the first person perspective in the story. In the book, using two different fonts to differentiate Hannah and Clay's word. This kind of writing way attracts me to keep reading, and make me curious about the plot.

Before Hannah try to suicide, she was once look for help. She talked to the school guidance counselor, Mr. Porter. But he only told Hannah to forget it, don't put it on her mind. He didn't give any actual support to Hannah, that's the last straw that break the camel's back. Hannah realized that no one will lend her a hand, she felt very depressed and decided to kill herself. When I read this part, I feel very melancholy. How can a school guidance counselor not notice Hannah's hopelessness and just say something irresponsible. I think that Hannah is willing to tell Mr. Porter her story is very courageous, it's not easy for a victim to speak out. You can see that there are so many victims won't tell anybody about themselves because they are afraid or they think it's very shameful. So Hannah must think again and again, and then decide to tell. When we notice that someone need a hand, we should support them immediately. If Mr. Porter helped Hannah at that time, maybe she won't be dead. This book really indicated many important issues, I will discuss the teenagers suicide problems in the next log!

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

 The first book I choose to read is "Oliver Twist". (孤雛淚)  

Book intro

It's written by Charles Dickens, and it's his second novel. Dickens is a British author and critic. He usually uses his novel to express his view about the society. This book revealed the miserable life of orphans in London that time. The story is about an orphan called Oliver Twist, his tragic life story. Fortunately, he still had a good ending in the book.

Reflection

Actually, I've read it before when I'm in the high school. But I like the story very much, so I decide to read it again. Also the deadline this time is short, I don't have much time to think about what to read. There's a famous line in the story which is "Please, sir. I want some more.", as you can see the cover page of the book. Oliver and other kids in the workhouse are always starving because they don't have enough food to eat. They only have a bowl of thin soup and a piece of bread on Sundays. After three months of slow starvation, the kids decide to ask for more food, and Oliver was chosen. The famous line is what he said to the master. Of course, hearing the request from Oliver, the master fly into a rage. He punished Oliver by hitting him. When I read this, I can even imagine the face and tone when Oliver was asking. He must be very terrified of it. How pitiful those little kids are! From this, I can realize that orphans were under such unfair treatment then. And they don't have any rights, I think this is a big problem. Until today, there are also lots of orphan and child abuse problem exists. 

In the middle of the story, Oliver escaped from the undertaker, and went to London alone. His journey was very hard; I was wondering how can a little boy go to London on foot? It is seventy miles away from his place. I admire his courage and independence. Reading the book makes me try to think about what should I do when these happened? If I were Oliver, I may choose to end my life rather than suffering for a long time. I don't have the perseverance like Oliver. I tend to give up when I encounter these things, even though I know it's a wrong decision. While I was reading this book, my thought is gradually become negative. XD Why there are always unfortunate events occurred on Oliver? Although there are lots of sad events happened on him, an old gentleman called Mr. Brownlow, took him home and take care of him in the end. I feel very happy and satisfied with this ending. I think "poor" is the main topic author wanted to discuss in the novel, Dickens described it in detail. Also wanted the readers know that how the social status impacted a person's whole life. The author satirized the upper class people and make it a big contrast to the lower class people.

Something about me! - Mia Lin

     Hi everyone! I'm Mia Lin, an applied foreign language student at NTUST. And I'm from Taipei! (p.s. Today is my 20th birthday. 🎊)

    Since this is the reading and writing class, I'd like to first talk about my reading history. Unfortunately, I have to say I'm not a reader, and even don't like reading at all. :( I never read in my spare time... However, I still have some experience reading books and novels. That can date back to my high school life. I had an English novel course, and the teacher asked us to read three novels in a semester. There were 100 questions about the plot as our exam. So I was kind of forced to read the book, or I wouldn't pass the exam. That was my first time reading an English novel, and I was a little bit afraid of it. In the semester, I read The Great Gatsby, Far from the Madding Crowd, and The Woman in White. At first, I used to think that reading was not interesting even though I knew that reading could enrich my knowledge. Reading these three novels changed my thoughts about reading English books. I can find something fun while reading the story, and I'm very relaxed during reading time! Thanks to the course, I'm willing to try more English novels now! 💪

    After today's class, I'm looking forward to reading more novels and writing my reading log! I think that this class can make me a habit of reading every day. Through writing reading logs and comments, I can practice my writing skills as much as I can. I know that this semester is going to write any paper, I'm wondering what my final portfolio looks like. 😆

    Don't forget about hobbies! I'm an outgoing person, so I like outdoor activities very much, like playing volleyball, swimming, and dancing. I'm enthusiastic about dancing. Of course, I'm in the school dance club. I enjoy the feeling when I'm on the stage. Dancing makes me more confident, and that's the main reason why I love to dance. I'm lack of confidence until I start to dance. Dancing really gives me a lot of power. 💖