The Vote

All of the books sounded really interesting and it’s hard for me to pick between The Road and My Sister’s Keeper. On one hand I really liked My Sister’s Keeper and I know it will fit in the class but on the other I’ve got this strange love for post apocalyptic stories and The Road sounds really creepy! The only thing I can think of that kind of steers me away from picking The Road is that maybe it would be a bit of a dark class if all the books ended up being depressing but wait… My Sister’s Keeper isn’t exactly a bright book either. I know that I will read The Road but I’m not sure next class would really enjoy reading about that sort of thing even though I’m eager to. Then again it does sound like it has interesting writing that I do think will add to the class discussion. One thing that makes me hesitate from picking My Sister’s Keeper is that it’s like a lot of the books we read in this class and I like how The Road seems to be unique and unlike all the rest of the books.
Okay, so here it is *drum roll* my vote goes to The Road! I loved My Sister’s Keeper but I was sold when The Road was being pitched. If it does make the class a little depressing it can just be put in between Happiness and Water for Elephants! Besides it will bring in a new type of book for the next course to look at.
So… even though I really was interested by all the other books pitched I have to say The Road wins this one.

The group I was in for the final project/paper decided to read My Sister’s Keeper and I have to say I thought it was a great read. My Sister’s Keeper is about a girl, named Anna, trying to emancipate herself medically from her parents when she’s only thirteen. The reason she does this is because even before her birth Anna was designed to help her sister Kate because Kate had cancer and needed a doner with a particular genetic makeup. Kate needed needed to have transplants that were essential in keeping her alive and Anna was born to donate them. So Anna, who’s under gone many surgeries without anything being wrong with her, takes her parents to court intending to stop her parents from signing her up to donate a kidney to her critically ill sister after she had little say in all of the other surgeries.
To me this was a really exciting and emotional story mainly because I too have a sister who I would do anything for. Anna wants to help her sister but she also wants a say in what is taken from her and to her parents and those around her she is considered somewhat selfish for wanting this. At first I have to say that I felt similar to those around her but after reading it though I can completely understand why she would want a say in what is taken out of her body, especially in her situation where she has been basically the only thing keeping her sister alive for 13 years. When I think about doing anything to help my sister it’s coming from a person who has always had a healthy sister and Anna’s story gives light to what it is like to be the one who’s grown up giving up parts and pieces to a person who it seems like is always getting closer and closer to death.
Although My Sister’s Keeper was an easy read it still challenged me to think of what would really be best in that type of situation and yet to understand what the human response was not only for Anna but her entire family.

In the Shadow of No Towers

I’m still trying to figure out if I liked this book or not. I have read comic books before so it really wasn’t that hard for me to read and I thought it had good content but for some reason I didn’t really care for it much. With that said there were a few things that I really did like about In the Shadow of No Towers.
I liked how Spiegelman used his art work to enhance the feeling of paranoia that his character is going though. It was weird because by the end of reading the first ten pages I was actually feeling a little anxious too. His use of his smoking increasing with every frame as he rants kind of help make clear two things for me; one… the topics are really important to him and two… that he’s even criticizing himself in his book.
I was also really interested after reading the ending compilation of comics to look back and see how he used characters and styles from those comics in his own story. It kind of reminded me of how Politician’s bring up historical examples to deal with the problems of today, but instead of using historical events he used historical comics. Also, along the lines of the comics he included at the end, it was odd to look at them just because they seem to still be relevant, and I didn’t really expect that. It kind of made me think that nothing’s changed which is kind of unnerving.

Fight Club

There were a lot of differences that I noticed in viewing of Fight Club in this class than I did when I first watched it. Maybe it was that I was watching with a more critical eye in class than I had before or maybe it had just been awhile since I had seen it but I got a lot more out of it in the second viewing. The idea of project Mayhem came out of his internal mayhem was something that I hadn’t really caught on too before and that it would ultimately lead to him trying to fix his problem. Also, after watching it a second time I’m wondering if he got rid of Durdan or if Durdan got rid of rid of Norton’s character. That makes the ending kind of eerie to me more so than before.
Overall I liked Fight Club because it criticizes the way people tend to rely on the material things and depend on them for stability. There was also the way that people lined up to follow this guy who you find out later is crazy, that’s something that boggles my mind. It was also a very entertaining movie to watch which makes it as exceptional. I think I’m going to have to read this book.