Ryan Shaw > Recent Status Updates

Aha Moment
The water Ren found in the subway cured Aven for a day and it seemed all was great because she could finally get out of bed and go outside, but then all of the sudden Aven falls over into an unconscious state and was rushed to the hospital. She went from being perfect and her tumor healing to worse than she was before.

Aha Moment
Ren crashes her vehicle and somehow makes her way into a building, down a bunch of stairs, and in a freshwater spring in the subway. As she is drinking she hears boots coming. She starts to yell for them with no response. But then, a voice responds back saying that it is Derek. This is an Aha Moment because she was about to die down in the subway but then she got saved, saving the rest of the story.

Contrast and Contradiction

In the beginning the book the protagonist talked about not wanting to make friends and avoiding everyone. Now, she said "I've always liked that girl." about Aven after she cheers her on about racing on the building, a popular activity in flooded New York.

Page 6
Word Gap
I do not know the definition of the word "emblazoned". I assume it means decorated in because of the sentence around it. "A handful of current team members, older boys wearing white jerseys emblazoned with large purple Ws..."
Emblazoned : to decorate with brilliant colors

Page 99
Extreme/Absolute Language
On page 99, Christine misses a reservation and is mad so she explains that she "screeched like a velociraptor". She did not actually screech like a velociraptor but it showed how frustrated she was.

Word Gap
Fruitlessly
Based on the surrounding sentence, "The site had been searched before, fruitlessly." (Hughes 51) I can infer that it means nothing was found or not finished.
Fruitless - useless; unproductive; without results or success

Word/Phrase Gap
Amphetamine Psychosis and Paranoid Dementia
I'm guessing these are both side effects of drugs since that is pretty much the majority of the book. He is talking about feeling very obvious and then asks himself if could be Amphetamine Psychosis or Paranoid Dementia.

Psychosis - a symptom which includes hallucinations, paranoia, and delusions typically following an overdose.

Word Gap
Mescaline, Rollaids, and Dramamine
From the rest of the paragraph, I believe these are drugs. Also, the entire book is based on the drug epidemic in the late 1900s. This entire book uses crazy words and is really all over the place in general so there are a lot of word gaps.

Numbers and Stats
The author used numbers and stats when talking about a certain motorcycle for a race called the Mint 500 in Vegas. He was telling his attorney that they need to call for money to get the bike. The author used the stats to show how powerful and good the bike is and why they should get it.

Aha Moment
Michael finds an online BYU course to help raise his grades in English. This is important because to be able to play football he needs to have good grades.
- Didn't know we were supposed to read over break

Again & Again
The author keeps repeating stats about the 1960s. About the average passing and running yards gained. I believe this is happening to show the difference between today's game and the game back 50+ years ago.

Contrast and Contradiction
Michael is pretty much known for being very good at sports but never talks or shows any emotion what so ever but in Myrtle Beach for a basketball tournament this changed. The crowd kept calling him racial slurs so he responded to them by giving them the finger.

Aha Moment
Michael walks into the room with the coach of a football team in it and the coach is stunned by his size. The coach is really excited when he sees him walk in because he could be a great addition to their football team.

Contrast and Contradiction.
Michael plays football for a small private school where he is the only African-American person on the team. Michael probably plays for them because it was the only school that gave him a chance to play.

The entire first chapter is an again and again signpost. It repeatedly talks about 'Taylor' and how good he is. From Taylor scaring quarterbacks to Taylor doing cocaine it's all in this first chapter.