I am currently reading Pretty Little Dirty by Amanda Boyden for my second quarter book. I’m about three quarters of the way through this young adult book that has a lot to do with growing up. Pretty Little Dirty is set in late 1970’s and the early 1980’s and is about this girl named Lisa who moves to Kansas City when she was 11. There she meets a girl named Celeste who will become her best friend. Since they have met they have been inseparable. Since Lisa doesn’t have much of a family to be there for her, she needs a friend to be there. Lisa’s mom is sick and she doesn’t do anything. She sits in bed all day and Lisa gets made fun of for having a mom like that. Soon her mom is put in a home so Lisa doesn’t have those problems. She isn’t very close with her dad or brother David either. Once she becomes friends with Celeste she pretty much lives at her house because her family is all she wished her family would be. While at Celeste’s house she learns how to cook, gets all of her homework done, and Celeste’s mom signs them up for dance.

Celeste is Lisa’s vision of the perfect girl with the perfect family and the perfect life. Lisa is happy that she gets to live it with her. As they get older and start going to high school things start to change. Lisa starts to notice that things are changing about Celeste that isn’t changing on her.  Anyways, they both start to change from good girls to bad ones. They start to go to parties, get in fights, and start drinking, drugs, and start hanging out with older guys. Once they finish high school they face their biggest problem ever. Lisa goes to college in Madison, Wisconsin and Celeste goes to college in California. Even though, they still talk on the phone a lot, it’s still not the same as seeing each other 24/7. During Christmas Lisa visits Celeste and she realizes that Celeste has changed a lot and Lisa feels she hasn’t changed at all. After a while, Lisa goes home and soon finds out that Celeste got kicked out of her suite for dropping out of college. Celeste is now missing and Lisa needs to find her.

My reaction to this is that Lisa should learn how to care more about herself and her life instead of being obsessed to be like Celeste. Yeah, its nice to have a friend that you admire, but I think Lisa takes it too far to the point of that she becomes not like herself or how she used to be. I feel that will have a big impact on Lisa’s future. My prediction for the end of the book is that Lisa will find Celeste and Lisa will go back and visit her dad and brother. Lisa and Celeste will be best friends until they die. Also, I feel that Lisa will go back to being herself and become more independent.

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I have recently finished reading the book Pretty Little Dirty by Amanda Boyden. I thought that this book was really easy to comprehend and relate to. I was really shocked and didn’t really know how to predict how it would end, but that’s why I liked this book. Just because of that, it made me never want to stop reading it. Also, I feel that the story felt so real, like I had a connection to it and that always makes reading a book more interesting and fun.

Character Sketch:

My character sketch is going to be about Celeste Diamond, who is Lisa’s best friend throughout the whole book. In this book it shows the life of Celeste Diamond from ages 11 to 21 through the eyes of her best friend Lisa. She can be described as beautiful and a dare devil. To Lisa she is the most perfect person she has ever seen. Celeste does a lot of things that most of us would think is a bad idea, which can cost a toll on Lisa. Throughout the book you realize that Celeste doesn’t seem to have a conscience, when Lisa does. Celeste also always gets what she wants, no matter what it is. It’s like she almost has a super power of some kind and Lisa has always wanted that. Which is why Lisa is friends with her, to have that feeling. I think Celeste is the way she is because of the pressure to be perfect and the way her parents are. They expect a perfect little girl who is perfect at everything. Which is why she is so risky with things and never really cares what happens. Even though, life can be difficult it’s always nice to have a friend that can keep you sane, which is what Celeste does for Lisa and Lisa does for Celeste.

Favorite Passage:

“You really wonder, years later – don’t you? – What feeds into the final making of a person?” (127) This passage is important because it is really something we all wonder. What really makes a person? Is it just one thing or a mix? This passage really pops out at me because I really don’t know how to answer the question either. I feel that growing up is one of the biggest and most important things that happen in your life. You even notice how Celeste and Lisa grow up throughout the whole book. Since no one really knows what makes a person, I feel that it gives you the chance to be whoever you want and not have any boundaries.

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Growing up can be a hard thing, yet it’s something we all go through. Some of us earlier in life and some later. In Amanda Boyden’s Pretty Little Dirty you see both. You see the beauty of becoming of age and you see the ugly. You see it through someone who’s going through it. However, as an adolescent myself I feel that this book could  potentially  teach other kids like me to take the wrong path. Such as, drugs and alcohol. On the other hand, it shows you the consequences if you do take the wrong path, which is this is a great book for adolescents.

Boyden’s choice of adult situations and language brings out a great connection. I’m sure everyone gets in bad situations or uses some sort of frowned upon language every once in awhile. That’s a part of growing up, new experiences and learning right from wrong. Some of the ways people grow up is rather shocking because some adolescents believe nothing bad will happen to them.

What’s effective about this whole book is that it really shows you how you only live once and that life is a really precious thing you have. Even if you think your life isn’t that great, like Lisa thinks her life is, you can change it however you want to your satisfactory. As you get older no one can stop you from anything, which Celeste shows Lisa how to do.

Although, I feel that Boyden often glorifies the use of illegal substances, which she doesn’t really show the bad side effects of, I think that it is a little misleading, but also causes anyone who reads the book to do further research. The use of illegal substances and teenagers is rising as the world produces more people and the substances at least Boyden shows how addiction can take over someones life. The good thing is you get to see it two ways and not just one. You can see it progress and recovery in a person.

Overall, Pretty Little Dirty is a really good book to read. It shows you how one person can effect your whole life just by being your friend. We all have someone in our lives to show us right and wrong and this book does that very well. It could also even help you with your own problems. If you’re ever feeling lost this book could always help you and give you ideas of what you can do with your life.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is in their adolescent stage of life. It is very easy to connect to and won’t cause any confusion while reading it. You might even learn more about yourself just from reading it, I know I did.

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When you first think of The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, what comes to your mind is: What is this letter and what does it mean? What you find out is that the letter resembles a symbol, a symbol of Adultery committed by Hester Prynne. Hester is forced to wear the letter “A” that is a scarlet red color to show that she is guilty for committing the sin of adultery. However, this book is dated way back to the seventeenth century and society was a lot different with its language and how people act when someone does something wrong.

Hawthorne’s writing brings great confusion along with many questions since I don’t comprehend everything he’s exactly trying to say. To resolve that issue I had to re-read many parts to understand what’s going on. It’s really fascinating how reading a book can show how the language has changed and sometimes even teach new words.

What’s effective about Hester’s situation is that she doesn’t give in to what society wants her to be. The book is dated back to the Puritan times in which everyone had to be “pure”.  She stands her ground and is pretty much forced to keep to herself and her daughter since they are ostracized from the town for what Hester did.

To understand these issues that are brought on throughout the book you have to connect to what is happening to something that is happening now.  An example would be married couples getting divorces because one of the persons in the marriage decides to find someone else. That’s pretty common in our time, but back then people had a whole different view about it.

Overall, The Scarlet Letter is still a good book and actually kind of shows how society could have evolved to how it is now. What helped me understand that issue is when you find out who committed the sin with her.  Hawthorne writes about who Hester had an affair with in the beginning, which usually the juicy details in a book happen in the end. I think he does that because that way the reader can know, but the rest of the people in the book won’t. That way a lot more can be defined in the book since you already know who it is.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the seventeenth century. Also, this book is a classical American novel. If you are interested in anything like that then yes, you will enjoy reading this book. But, if you’re like me then you will probably get confused often. Don’t worry, you will figure it out and you will end up liking it more than you thought you would.

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I have recently finished readying the book The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I thought the book had a great concept, but at times it got really confusing. It was probably the different way they talked back then that made me so confused. Also, I think that the story had a really good plot and I wouldn’t want to change it.

Character Sketch:

My character sketch is going to be about Pearl, who is Hester’s daughter. In the book she starts as a baby and goes up until the age of 7. She is beautiful and looks like her mother. She can be described as devilish and evil. She does what she wants and no one can stop her. Sometimes she doesn’t even listen to her mom. I think what motivates her to act like that is how she was brought up. Pearl doesn’t have the regular kid life. She was born into this world already excluded from everything and everyone. Even though its not her fault I think it’s what makes her act so devilish.

Favorite Passage:

“It is remarkable that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society.” (171) This passage is important to me because it relates to how our society is today. Such as, that most people who are outgoing often change into someone their not just because society says they can’t be that way.

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For first quarter I am reading The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Scarlet letter is a fiction/romance novel about a woman named Hester Prynne who is ostracized by her whole town. I am about half way through with the book. Hester is excluded from her town because she has committed adultery and now has to wear a marking on her bosom. The marking is a scarlet red  A that she has sewn on to all of her clothing as a punishment. She also has to stand out on the stand for the guillotine in front of the whole town while holding her baby. Where I’m at in the book is when Hester’s baby or Pearl as she is named her is a little girl and Hester is threatened that Pearl is taken from her because Pearl isn’t being taugh obedience and isn’t learning enough of what she’s supposed to learn. Also, the biggest question the whole town has is: Who is the father of Pearl? Once they figure out who that it, he will be exposed to the public along with Hester to be punished for their sins. I predict that the Minister is the father, but I will have to keep reading to find out.

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Throughout my first year of high school I have learned more skills and have changed majorly from the beginning of the year. In the beginning of the year I was very nervous about making a blog but it has been going a lot better than I thought.  I haven’t just changed in Cyber English but also in all of my classes. But, Cyber English would have to be one of the biggest changes the whole year.

 What I have learned throughout my whole year in cyber English I have learned more about internet safety, hyperlinks, sentence fragments, food safety. And we also read Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. But the book I liked better was Speak because it was about a girl in high school and I thought it was more relatable since To Kill A Mockingbird was based on the 1930’s which was a longer time ago.  By doing all of those units have made me become a better writer and a better reader. How it made me a better writer is by having my own blog to write about all of those units. How I became a better reader is from reading the books for the class, independent reading novels, and other documents for each unit.

The thing that’s most surprising that changed about me throughout the whole year would have to be my writing because I was never really good at it. But, now I’m becoming a better writer and actually proofreading what I write before I submit it to my blog.  By having a blog I have learned a lot more because it’s something that anyone can see and you can read other people’s blogs to see their point of view on something. Having a blog affects how I write because it doesn’t hurt my hands as much as writing with a pen on paper and you have more time to think about it and not just typing random things.  Some skills that I have gained from this class are that I now know more about keys on the computer like secret controls such as: copy and pasting, how to make a blog and pretty much manage it, having a wiki page, and better proofreading of sentences. 

Looking back to the beginning of the year I wouldn’t want to change anything that we learned this year. I really like how every unit was different and not all the same. I feel that if anything was the same then we really wouldn’t learn anything.  One of my favorite things we learned this year was the food safety because it was nice to know what’s really in the food that I’m eating and helped me make better choices of what to eat.

In this year of Cyber English 9 it was one of the best English classes I ever had. Mainly because of the diversity of the things we learned about and that it will help us in the future. I think it’s very important to learn about the computer because soon or in the future it will be all we have and there won’t be many people still writing on pen and paper.

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In Cyber English we just finished reading the book To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. In this blog post we have created a newspaper called  Maycomb Times  that could be similar to what Heck Tate would have written for his small newspaper in Maycomb.

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In Cyber English I currently finished reading the book Blue Bloods by Melissa De La Cruz. In this blog post I’m going to share with you what character I think changed the most and what caused them to change. I hope you enjoy.

The character I think changed most in the book would have to be the lead character named Schuyler. How she changed is in the beginning she only had a couple of friends and she didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the people at her school. And I think that the author made her that kind of person because every high school has people like that. The way Schuyler changed is that she started talking to more people like Jack Force who was the most popular guy in her school. And she seemed to be known more by other people that never really recognized her before.

Jack is in this group called the committee and all the people in that group are vampires (also called blue bloods). Schuyler’s not the only one who is invited to the committee. Another girl named Bliss who also is a blue blood becomes friends with Schuyler even though Bliss is supposed to be friends with Mimi who is Jack Force’s popular twin sister. During the committee meetings Mrs. Dupont would tell them all they needed to know. “Mrs. Dupont explained everything, like how the marks on their arms were just their blood shining through their skin and how the canine familiars that followed us home were just part of their soul that had transferred to the physical world to protect them” (145) Since Schuyler was a young blue blood that means she was turning into a vampire. What forces caused her to change was that she found out what she really is which is not a regular person. The fellow blue bloods would let her know what was going on with her so she doesn’t get scared about it. I think that her changing kind of made her more into a confident and social person and not so shy. Now she would actually want to be around other people then instead of being with just her friends and not socializing.

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In the beginning of the year my technical skills really weren’t that good. Some things I didn’t know were like shortcuts on the keyboard, how to make hyperlinks, or how to make a blog or a wiki. Since I’ve been in Cyber English I have learned more about a computer and how it works. Also I learned more about how the internet works too. What’s different from the beginning of the year and now is that I know how to get to websites on the internet faster and how to post stuff on the internet. Some things that I learned how to put on the internet are, posting things to my blog and wiki, and how to make comments on other people’s blogs or wiki’s.  What I still want to work on is how I write or type. Most of the things I type are all ideas that are unsupported. Lately I have been trying to fix that and I think it has been going very well. What I would like to accomplish on my blog next year or the year after would have to be having more of a variety. What I mean is that I do my blog posts on the same questions for most of my books that I read and blog about. In the future I would like to change that and have different topics on what I do for my blogs so my readers won’t get bored, and I would love to have more people come visit my blog.

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