SECOND BLOG

This book kind of reminded me of like, a superhero movie or something. It really covers a lot of themes
Like…
1. Racism
2. Abuse
3. Drugs
4. Sex
5. Honesty
6. Exercise
And I really think that Crutcher should have stuck to one theme, because it’s frustrating that he’s trying to make this an awesome foretelling insightful book, but its only like two hundred and fifty pages, instead of like, some trilogy on life lessons or something. But it reminds me of a superhero book because everyone is like, BUFF and STRONG and has NO EMOTIONS (that they show on the outside) and all that shtooff(made up word) Anyways, some of it is all “DEATH, DOOM, AND DESTRUCTION!" But other times during the book its like “I WANT TO KILL MYSELF¨ and then other parts are all snow Whitish like, ”LETS SING WITH THE ANIMALS!¨ so I think its really confusing that he going from such boring moments from half the book to really intense moments (like death) in the second half of the book. And I mean, I guess I know that having the mood switch throughout the book is supposed to keep interesting, but I think that he added too much action too late, and eventually it just became so intense that you didn’t even find it interesting anymore.

Actually, something that I find commonly happening in books is that a lot of the authors out there really like to somewhat torture their characters, especially in Young Adult Literature. I mean like, a few books (or at least from my reading experience) have happy endings and stuff, but a lot seem to have authors who want there characters to suffer so immensely until the end of the book, when it eventually because a little much. I don’t think the Crutcher really did that a whole lot in this book, because he didn’t make Jeff die or anything, but he did torture him in the way that Jeff had everything in the world he pretty much wanted, and then it was taken away because of his “blood disease” Also with Jeff, there was his shipwreck, caused by him getting expelled because he beat up a student teacher that was hitting on his girlfriend. Other examples of him wanting to torture his characters were …

• Nortie’s abuse from his father; O’Brian beating on him because of his black girlfriend; his brother’s suicide; his mother’s inability to leave his father; and his inability to cope with reality and the world around him(being intimidated easily)
• Lion’s crappy apartment; the fact that his parents died; and he’s really easily bothered by things, and those things make him do rash things which end in him in trouble
• Walker’s parent’s age(they’re really old); his brothers drinking; his brother’s drug use; his brother’s drug dealing; and always having to haul his brother’s ass out of biker bars.

I think it’s kind of sad that he ends up torturing all his characters….