Ariellee’s Comments (group member since Aug 22, 2014)

Ariellee’s comments from the BDCHS Advanced Reading group.

I give the novel "The giver" by Lois Lowry a 5 out of 5, rate wise because this book did not have dull moment for me. It truly lived up to my standards and I have no regret about reading it. I would even re-read this book. This book was recommended for me and I understand why; this book includes great lessons that I believe everyone should learn.
The Giver consists of a boy names Jonas who seemed to live a normal life other than the fact that he lives in a community where they have no feelings and live in an orderly fashion. The other important characters are: The giver which is a man who transferred the memories he has to the receiver, Fiona and Asher which are Jonas' two best friends. Jonas' family: his father, mother and sister Lily. And Gabriel which is the toddler that the family have looked after since he was a baby. The story takes place in a misguided Utopia community that is part of a larger utopia society (on earth), where the people know nothing of the past, except one individual. The Giver. The giver has all of the memories of the past, well all the memories that the previous giver gave him. The Giver is aging now and someone has to take on his responsibility so at the ceremony of twelve (a ceremony in which the age twelve children are told their responsibility or job to the community) Jonas, who had been living a perfectly "normal" life was chosen to become the new receiver. Jonas was shocked and a little scared, he did not know what to do, what he had to do. Jonas quickly became the most honored citizen in the society. Jonas does not know what he has been signed up for, this becomes the problem. The problem is that Jonas' job is to receive all of the old memories of the past from the Giver however, this includes the painful memories such as war. The Giver is old but has compassion for Jonas because he knows how painful these memories are and does not want to hurt Jonas but it is his job to give him these memories. All of these new memories and all of these new feelings (love,sadness,starvation) have cause Jonas to rebel against the society. Jonas is disgusted at the society especially for their releases.The release that opens his mind to all of this is a release of a newborn twin, the society can only keep one twin. Jonas believes that the twin will go to another society elsewhere however he watches the tape that shows him that release is just the killing of that person. Jonas watches his father kill an innocent baby, he is disgusted. The society releases the old and the young that do not meet their standards, at first Jonas thinks that releasing is a happy thing but he soon realizes that they are killing the released by injecting them with a liquid that kills you. Jonas can not handle the lies of his society so along with the Giver they come up with plan for Jonas to escape. The problem with his escape is that when Jonas leaves, all of his memories will return to the community an everyone will feel them and know them, as they once did before. The community is scared of this happening because ten years prior to Jonas being chosen the Giver attempted to give memories to another girl who we later find out is named Rosemary, all of Rosemary's memories were transferred to the community when she decided to release herself. Even though Jonas does not know what will happen when he leaves, he leaves anyway. He also takes along a baby boy named Gabriel who had been staying with his family for over a year and was chosen to be released in the morning if Jonas had not taken him. Jonas started on his journey afraid of being caught but filled with courage and a burning passion to leave the lying community. He searched for an elsewhere. Jonas' solution to his problem was to flee the community and that was sort of left unanswered, the ending is a cliff hanger for the next books in the series. The theme of this book is the importance of memory. The importance of memory shows through immensely because with memory the community would know better and what to do and what not to do and they would have a completely different lifestyle.
I learned a great deal from this novel. I learned that I should cherish my memories because one day I can pass them on (metaphorically) to my children or a younger generation. Most of us probably do not care about our memories now but later we may not have the luxuries or even pain that we have now and we have to preserve that so that the next generation can experience them like we have. I loved this novel and would consider reading it for encouragement and hope for the future. Overall I would recommend this novel to anyone especially someone needing a short reminder that things were worse before and we should embrace the happy moments in life. I can clearly see why this novel has received so many awards, I look forward to getting the chance to read the rest of the series.

The book that I have had the privilege to read is “She Said Yes: The unlikely martyrdom of Cassie Bernall” by Misty Bernall. Although the title may seem long the actually book is only163 pages, this may seem short but reading this book I became attached to the family. I can honestly say that throughout reading this book I cried multiple times and stayed up processing what happened in the book, I myself did not want to believe that Cassie Bernall had indeed passed away. This is why I rated this book a 5/5. “She said yes” is easily one of the best books I have ever read, this book takes place in Colorado mostly at a high school named Columbine. However, this story also takes place in the Bernall home. The characters in this book are; Misty Bernall; The mother of Cassie Bernall and the author and main speaker of this book. Brad Bernall; The father of Cassie Bernall who plays a prominent role in understanding the atmosphere of the Bernall house hold. Chris Bernall; The brother of Cassie Bernall and although he does not make many appearances in this book, he surely plays a large role in their family and the sympathy I felt for them. There are also a bunch of people who knew Cassie who spoke in this book such as; Jordan who visited the Bernall home after Cassie’s death and grieved with them, Crystal a survivor of the Columbine shooting, Josh who heard Cassie’s exchange with the gunman in the library, Shauna who was a staff member at West Bowles church, And Dave the pastor for the youth at West Bowles church. There had also been a number of Cassie’s closest friends who had written letters with Cassie both good and bad such as; Mona, Cassandra, Jamie and Mike.
The plot of “She Said Yes: The unlikely martyrdom of Cassie Bernall” is a mother (Misty Bernall) who writes about her daughters (Cassie Bernall) murder in the Columbine school massacre. Misty tells about her daughters fight with her alliance with Satan and in the end she died for her belief in God. Throughout this story Misty tells how Cassie got involved with the wrong crowd and made decisions she probably should not have made, such as writing letters to her friend Mona about killer Cassie’s parents and doing drugs. Misty could not believe that her daughter had been writing things like this and growing into a deep depression all the while separating from her family. Cassie was even caught skipping school and cursing out her little brother Chris. As parents Brand and Misty Bernall had to take action and they went to the police and to Mona’s parents and filed a restraining order on Mona and forbid Cassie and Mona from seeing each other. They also removed Cassie from her public school to a private Christian school and began taking her to West Bowles church’s youth group activities. Cassie was reluctant at first but after a while of strict love and constant watch as well as the help of her friend Jamie who introduced her to youth activities such as the weekend that changed Cassie’s life, Cassie began to show respect and love for her family as well as God. Throughout this time of loving God and learning from her mistakes she moved schools as well as houses. She moved houses to escape her past and old friends and then she persuaded her parents to let her move schools because she had been doing so well. Cassie began attending Columbine and everything was going great until two students from Columbine decided to go on a shooting spree, a massacre killing students and teachers and having the intent to blow up the school with bombs. Their attempt succeeded sadly and killed Cassie along the way. Cassie had been in the library at the time when the two boys came in and started shooting people, one of the boys came to Cassie and asked her “Do you believe in God”?, Without hesitation and with a look of fear she responded “yes” and was shot in the head and instantly killed. The Bernalls could not believe this had happened to their daughter. Misty goes on to tell the story of how her and her daughter Cassie’s relationship had been and how she wished she would have stopped arguing at her and just love her. The Bernalls became ambushed with news reporters and people all over the world grieving the loss of Cassie, Misty knew Cassie would not like this attention but she could not do anything about it. Misty Bernall goes on with the story and planned Cassie’s burial and explains how she misses her every day. Then again who would not miss a close family member who passed in such a tragedy. The problem in this book is the death of Cassie and how the Bernall family is going to deal with the loss. The solution had been their faith in God. The theme of this book is that you can do anything with the belief of God and that any troubled teen can turn around with God.
What I learned from this book is that I cannot give up on God even through tough times. Me, myself have been through tough times such as the loss of my mom and through that I got baptized and joined the army of God, I have never regretted this decision. I loved this story because it gave me hope and could not have come at a better time. Overall this book has given me the hope I need to get through the tough days and my times of depression. Also this book has taught me how a family should act and what to so as a younger sibling when your older sibling is acting up, this is thanks to Chris Bernall. I would definitely recommend this book to any one and reread this book over and over again. I also appreciate Misty Bernall writing this, I know how hard it must have been going through this.

The book Monster by Walter Dean Myers was an assigned book by my class. After reading it I rate it a 3 out of 5, this is because I did not particularly like the book but I did learn from it and it was realistic and made you feel like you were a part of the book. The book takes place first in Harlem New York where Steve is from, we also see 141st street where the crime occurs, then we are taken back and forth from the courthouse to the jail cell. The characters in this book were Steve Harmon; a young African American teen accused of murder. James King, Richard (bobo) Evans, Osvaldo Cruz, Sandra Petrocelli (state lawyer), and Kathy O'Brien (Steve's lawyer). The book is written in a movie script format by Steve Harmon and goes through explaining Steve and his journey that ended him up in jail. Throughout the book it switches from Steve Harmon's thoughts in his journal to the actual screen play during the trial. Steve is in a trial where he was simply caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Being in a jail cell and being on trial have started to make Steve doubt himself and question whether or not he is guilty...or innocent. The jury decides that Steve is innocent even though Steve was the look out. I believe he is guilty however, this book had its ups and downs but Steve did a good job of persevering. The problem in this book is that Steve is On trial for murder but he plays out the trial (literally) and is found innocent. However there is also an internal conflict developing of whether or not he believes he is guilty or innocent. Therefore the theme is to find yourself and do not let anyone define you, I see this theme occur especially when Steve is called a monster by Sandra Petrocelli.


From this story I have learned that the eyes of our society has been corrupted to without realizing become prejudice. I also learned that I order to succeed you have to have faith in yourself and persevere. I did like this book however it seemed sketchy to me meaning I did not see a clear reason why anyone would want to write a story in the format of a movie, a book and a movie to me should never come together unless it is a movie about a book not a book about a movie. It was also a little hard to follow. Overall I do not think I would recommend this book to anyone because it felt a little like a disappointment. This is why I gave it a 3 out of 5 on my rating.

The book I read was Soul Surfer by Bethany Hamilton. In the book the main characters were Bethany; a surfer and her best friend Alana Blanchard, Cheri Hamilton (mom), Tom Hamilton (dad), And Noah and Timmy Hamilton (brothers). The setting was on the Island of Hawaii, where Bethany and her family lived. The plot was Bethany and her family were all surfers along with her best friend, they always surfed and even competed in competitions. One Halloween morning Bethany and Alana went for a morning surf while Bethany's dad was having surgery. While surfing Bethany was bite by a shark and lost her left arm. Bethany slowly recovered and was not only destined but she was determined to surf again so her father made a surf board that would make it possible for her to surf. Bethany slowly but surely got back on the board and eventually got signed to a professional surf sponsor called rip curl. The problem of this novel was Bethany losing her arm but she solved this by adapting and she was able to do daily tasks just as well as before. The theme of this novel was to keep your faith and don't ;et anything stop you from reaching you dreams.


On a scale of one to five, I would rate this book a four because although it was a good book some parts tended to be a little boring. From this book I learned to never give up, Bethany inspired me because even though she faced many challenges she never gave up. Overall I enjoyed the story, my favorite part of the book was the shark attack because it was thrilling. A comment about this book is that it is a good book to read and if you like suspense and drama this would definitely be the book for you.

Z for Zachariah by Robert C. O'Brien was an action packed thriller. The characters in the book were; Ann Burden, Mr.Loomis, and Faro. Ann Burden a 16 year old girl lives in a valley all by herself after a nuclear war took place. After her family left to find survivor's they never returned. Ann thought she was alone until she seen a smoke cloud moving closer. Eventually a man in a green plastic suite shows up, terrified, Ann hides out until she realizes the man is sick and she goes to help him. Faro, Ann's brothers dog that she hasn't seen since her family left came back. As Ann and the man interact and as time passes Ann discovers Mr.Loomis is a dangerous man and she has to escape but she needed the green suit to protect her from radiation. One day Ann gets the suit and Mr.Loomis tries to go after her but she shoots him in the leg and is able to escape to search for possible survivors and a new,safe place to live. The setting of this noel is a valley in America after a nuclear war. The problem of this story was Ann needed to escape from the dangerous man named Mr.Loomis, she solves this problem by stealing the green radiation suit and leaving. The theme of this book is don't trust strangers, also it's a dog eat dog world.


On a scale of one to five, I rate this book a five because it was full of suspense, I did not want to put this book down. What I learned from this book is that if there was ever a nuclear war it would be everybody for themselves. I loved this book, it was superb from the beginning to the end, there was not a dry moment. Overall I would recommend this book to everyone because it is an action packed thriller that will have you wandering what happens next.