Michelle > Recent Status Updates

Characters:
Orion Pagan - main character -is going to the first DeathCast event in
Times Square in New York City with his friend Dalma.

Dalma, friend of Orion, is probably gonna be the one who creates the friend app that is used in the next book.

Valentino- main character (POV). He has a twin sister and they’re both planning to move to New York City together, but Valentino leaves first.

Damn and blast. Not Connor!!

It’s nice to experience this book a second time reading it with ezra.

Love experiencing all these books again with Ezra.

We also finally watched the movies 1-4 in the past few weeks. I’m so thankful my child loves books as much as me and that we still have a nightly reading routine.

His school had a “dress as your favorite book character” for the first day of March on Wed and we pulled out his Harry Potter costume from first grade. He had been reading the books at school but stopped with this one because it sounds like some kids in his class thought the centaur on the front cover was inappropriate because he has no clothes. Totally cracked me up.

I started reading this series to ezra when he was in first grade and he loved it, until we got to this book. I think it was a little too scary. This year, during fourth grade, he’s been working his way through the books mostly on his own with me reading a chapter or two at night. We’ve made it to book 5 again.

Just started yesterday. Tammi Kantola loaned me this one. It’s my first Picoult novel. So far, I’m enjoying the character development and the way she’s organized the text to move back and forward through time.

Read this book aloud to ezra. He was hooked. We’re working our way through the series. He likes to continue where I left off after I read to him and put him to bed. Since I’ve already read this series myself, I don’t mind one bit.

New word in the first chapter.
antimacassar- the cloth placed over the back or on the arms of a chair or a couch to protect its fabric from stains.

I just re-read the chapter “queen of Cuba” that I listened to on Malcolm’s podcast. Loving this book and how he ties together all these different events.

I can hear Malcolm’s voice in my head as I read now. I love that.

I love Stephen King and this book is. I exception. I both want to slow down to make this book last and also speed up so that I can see how the two narratives will intersect.

King’s characterization is on point, as usual. There are characters to love-Luke, Kalisha, Avery- and characters to hate-Mrs. Sigsby and the adults at the Institute.

I love that my son’s teacher is reading this aloud to her first/second grade class. It’s a sweet story on one man’s desire to make a difference in the world by building schools in Pakistan.

“But here are the words that kept ricocheting around me all day: Nobody says the words anymore, but somehow the violence still remains. If I didn’t want the violence to remain, I had to do a hell of a lot more than just say the right things and not say the wrong things.”

Brendan started reading this book when his brother, Darren, got it for him for Christmas. I caught up to where Brendan was so now I can read aloud to him from it. I’ve read quite a bit today a we traveled to Lansing and back to see friends.

I’m enjoying the sarcastic humor in the book so far. Alice seems like someone I’d want to hang out with, minus the focus on shopping and clothes.

He’s starting to ask the boy to decide on things...turning point? Preparing boy for when he’s gone?

He’d had this feeling before, beyond the numbness and the dull despair. The world shrinking down about a raw core of parsible entities. The names of things slowly following those things into oblivion...How much was gone already? The sacred idiom shorn of its referents and so of its reality. (88-89).”

It just got real. His wife is choosing to kill herself and leave behind narrator and son.

This one freaked Ezra out a little at first and we stepped away from it, reread the first book, then came back and finished this one.

My theory: the supreme commander also has some type of power that he passed down to all his sons.

James’ power is going to be something about knowing things- he knew Juliette was still alive.

And he seems even more like a douche when he is insistent on them being in a relationship and telling her she’s denying her feelings. He says he can’t be friends with her?

And he seems even more like a douche when he is insistent on them being in a relationship and telling her she’s denying her feelings. He says he can’t be friends with her?

I can see some redeeming qualities in Warner now, but it still annoys me every time he refers to Juliette as “love”. He did it before they were close and it’s just too familiar of him...

Anderson -the supreme commander- is Adam’s dad? That means Adam and (Aaron)Warner are brothers. Does that mean Jamie is also the son of Anderson?

So the plan is for them to trade Juliette to the re-establishment for the four hostages? Seems like a terrible plan...

Also...every single man in this story seems to be after Juliette. Seems kinda dumb.

Right now, Kenji is my favorite character. Juliette is a bit too whiny, Adam seems incoherent, and Castle seems shady.

“I have to find her before she breaks” (91).
Another example of Warren’s patriarchal thinking