Ashley Lyons > Recent Status Updates

INCITING INCIDENT: Within the first 1-3 chapters of this book the main character Olive is being sent to Greece because her dad who disappeared for 9 years needs her help with something. She is forced to skip a trip with her boyfriend and his friends and this makes Dax mad. For the first 2 days she is in Santorini, Greece, Dax doesn't call or text her back.

INCITING INCIDENT: Within the first 1-3 chapters of this book the main character Olive is being sent to Greece because her dad who disappeared for 9 years needs her help with something. She is forced to skip a trip with her boyfriend and his friends and this makes Dax mad. For the first 2 days she is in Santorini, Greece, Dax doesn't call or text her back.

MAKING CONNECTIONS: Sam has O.C.D. which of course is hard to deal with and sometimes she gets panic attacks or scary thoughts that take over her head, ect... Her breathing becomes off beat and sometimes that happens to me too. She struggles to talk to her friends about anything sympathetic because they are popular and act differently from her. I struggle with this too with some of my friends who I'm not close with.

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS: Samantha (main character) has never seen Caroline before until the beginning of her junior year. Sam starts to have some trouble with her friends who happen to be the popular girls. She meets Caroline who helps her make the right decisions. Soon enough Sam starts to spill out everything that bothers her and all the hard things she has to deal with like O.C.D. Caroline helps her cope with this.

CHARACTERIZATION: Meredith goes through an emotional roller-coaster throughout the entire book. Sometimes she'll be happy and at ease when she's with Wit. Then her thoughts about losing her sister will take over her mind and she'll be sad again shedding tears alone in the dark wishing she could be held by her sisters' arms.

VISUALIZATION: In this book the author describes how The Farm looks and even smells. This is the place where Meredith and her family and friends spend most of the summer. It is described with a long 3 mile dirt driveway to the property. Filled with grassy fields and a beautiful ocean view. Many cabins and homes get to take in the salty ocean breeze smell and can hear the ruckus in the bushes where the animals are.

SETTING: The setting of this book is at a high school, it's Rosaline's senior year and she wants to make it a good one. Rosaline is sitting in the auditorium on the first day of school with her two best friends. Charlie and Olivia always tease her about her boy best friend named Rob. Today is the first day Rosaline has seen him since the beginning of summer. She gets nervous about seeing him but everything ends well.

Lina had just lost her mom and has been rough pushing past it. But her mom made her promise that she would live with her father Howard who she has never met before for a little while. Not to mention, he lives in Italy!! Lina could be perfectly fine living life exploring Italy, until someone mentions her mothers death. She is meeting people her age and enjoys going out to spend time with them.

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS: Paisley is Skylars' 13 year old sister. The whole time they were on a road trip with Norah's family (childhood family friends) Paisley suspected something was up between Skylar and Norah. She watched and listened but the role she plays is important because she asked questions that made Norah realize that things won't always go her way, and that she has to put something in action to get results.

Avery goes on a device free vacation with her family and stay for the full 2 months of summer. Avery walks around and sees an auditorium to check out. She walks in to see a band playing and one of them is Brooks, him and Avery continue hangout but soon realize that they like each other. Avery overcomes her fear of singing, so she decides to help Brooks try out for a festival, while he plays the guitar she will sing.

ARCHETYPES: The archetype is "Overcoming the Monster". Virginia has a gift or curse from God called the second sight or the knowing, it tells her if danger is coming. She finds out through dreams or even by touching someone. Near the end one of the Native leaders plan to kill all of the people from the colonies. Virginia finds out about this when she sees a native friend crying on the ground and she touches him.

SUPPORTING CHARACTERS: Angela was kidnapped by Portuguese slave traders, she was then stolen by English pirates, then was sold to someone in James Town. She is from Ndongo and has a husband and son there but soon falls in love with Samuel Collier. She is helpful and works hard, always has a smile on her face. Angela is a good person and gives good advice on how to get through the hard things that come around.

VISUALIZE: Virginia is 5 years old and lives in James Town with her growing family. Her mom and brother take her out of the fort to see what she has learned about what her mom studies. She studies medicine which she learned from her mom, so she is now teaching Virginia about it at her young age. Virginia describes the forest she is in at every detail. The sizes of rocks and trees, and even how the water feels.

CONNECTIONS: Some connections I make with my book to the world is the friendship between friends. Fonda, Drew, and Ruthie are neighbors and have been friends for their whole lives. They are always there for each other and always find a way to get passed the school drama that comes. This reminds me about the world because there are people who are always there for you but there's people who try to bring you down.

CHARACTERIZATION: Drew likes a boy named Will, he is in 7th grade just like her and skateboards like her also. They recently got into an argument and Drew tries to apologize in many ways. Although he doesn't forgive her she keeps trying. She thinks of him as a burp, on page 235 it says, "But her feelings for him were like burps-unexpected bubbles that welled up inside her that had to be released."

ANTAGONIST: In this book the antagonist is Drew and Fonda who are Ruthie's best friends or "nesties". The protagonist is like the TAG group, which is a class for smarter or more advanced kids. Ruthie is in this class and feels distant from her friends. So for Ruthie its like a contest to see who she wants to be with and where she wants to be. She chose her nesties over TAG but to get there she has to fail her test.

GENRE: This book is realistic fiction. The overall book is about a girl who just moved and switches school. The girls name is Margaret, and Margaret thinks it will be hard to find friends at the new school. She talks about how she talks to God almost every night, even though shes not religious. She doesn't dare to tell her parents about how she talks to God. Margaret just tries to find what religion she wants to be.

STATIC vs. DYNAMIC: The dynamic character in this book is Margaret who is the main character. Margaret has flaws like not going through changes in her body yet or not having a religion due to family drama. These flaws make her interesting to learn about and fun to hear stories from. To help her through these flaws that don't seem cool to her, she talks to God about it.

ASK QUESTIONS: Since the beginning of the book I have always wondered... what was up with Sarah? Why was it that she never made eye contact with anyone? I'm sure other kids in the school had OCD but how did she only notice Daniel? She said that she's been watching him for a while but hasn't said anything because she didn't need him, until she had to solve a murder mystery.

The protagonist in this book is Daniel, he is on the football team and likes a girl named Raya, he barely knows how to play but always seems to impress her and is focused on trying to be cool and popular. A quiet girl named Sarah comes to Daniel and asks fro his help to solve a murder mystery. One time after they had to go to the "murderers" house Daniel had to go to a party right after at Raya's house.

PREDICTIONS: Earlier in the book I read that Daniel was going to a party at Raya's house and he only went because his crush was there and his friend Max was going as well. During the party everyone plays spin the bottle and Daniel was sitting right across from Raya. I predicted that Daniel and Raya were going to kiss and they did.

CONFLICT: The conflict in this book is a mix of all except the character vs. nature. For example, the character vs. society is like how Daniel says he isn't normal and has to do everyday thing multiple times or his brain tells him he won't wake up in the morning. He wants to believe he's normal but knows he isn't. Or even how Daniel goes against himself and tries to ignore the "ZAPS" but can't.

The P.O.V in this book is told by Daniel's point of view, which is first person. This means that Daniel can't see or know how the story of his middle school life ends. So when he goes to the school dance with his best-friend, he doesn't know that his crush Raya was going to talk to him. But he also didn't expect to have a ZAP attack and embarrass himself in front of all the kids in his school.