Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Sorry, but I couldn't finish blogging about Hush, Hush, because I am just flying through books too fast.

I have reached my final book of this assignment. This book is called "Before I Fall" and is about a popular girl and her friends who get into a car accident, and the girl must relive this day seven times to somehow solve the mysteries around her, and discover the meaning of her life. This girl and I share a namesake: Sam. Sam and her friends :Lindsey, Elody, and Alli, are at the top of the food chain in high school. They go to all the parties and get all the boys. Sam knows that some of the things she does are not nice or fair, but she still does them because that is how it is supposed to be. She sees things so differently than I do. She feels like in high school, there is a circle, and you are either in it, or out of it. I know this not to be true because I have been right on the line. Her life is superficial in a lot of ways. Sure she has great friends and has fun, not always the best kind of fun, but she sees no wrong in that.

When she wakes up on February twelfth in her home in Connecticut, she feels normal. No foreshadowing feeling in her gut. It is cupid day, and Sam and her friends purposely dress the same, and they compete to see who will receive the most valograms, or roses. The day is great. In fact, Sam and her boyfriend Rob are supposed to make love for the first time that night. I get the feeling it isn't the smartest idea, I just can't picture it. Sam actually admits to the reader that she doesn't like the way he kisses, and she is only doing this to get it over with, because she doesn't want to make a big deal out of being a virgin. They are invited to a party at Kent Mcfuller's house. At the party there is much drinking and drama. Rob is there, completely drunk, and Sam is having second thoughts. Then a girl, Juliet Skyes; a girl Lindsey had always picked on for no reason, shows up. She looks pretty, and Sam and her friends never knew how pretty she was. Juliet walks up to Sam and her friends and calls them (individually) a...female dog. Sam is a little shocked. Everybody starts pouring booze over Juliet's head, and pushing her across the room. Sam subconsciously is doing the same, and then she tries to find the bathroom, a place to escape, and Kent tells her "I see right through you". Though Sam doesn't realize it right then, people are confronting her, and telling her that she isn't has great as she thinks she is. Leaving with her friends, they drive home in the rain. Lindsey is smoking and suddenly her cigarette drops between her thighs, Elody and Alli are fighting under the stress, and the iPod, and Sam is yelling at them trying to get them to calm down. But then the car starts to swerve and turns all over the places and into the woods. Sam has time to smell the fire burning. Then, blackness.

All of a sudden, she wakes up, and she is in her bed. The date on her phone is February twelfth. Lindsey comes by to pick her up, but shows no recollection of anything that Sam has experienced. Throughout the day, Sam thinks she is going crazy, wondering why she is living this day over again. Things happen similarly, despite a few changes. She slowly goes through the motions of the day, right through the party, and driving home, experiencing death again. And she wakes up on February twelfth.

I think Sam is going to realize the effect she has on people, and the damage she has done. I also believe she will try to make things right. This book reminds me of the movie Groundhogs Day, where the man has to relive the day until he sets things "right".

Hush, Hush- to page 128

This book was so great, I flew right through it. I will try to sum it up quicker than I usually would do, so I can move on to my next book, giving you the predictions I had at the time.

Patch continues to brood in a mysterious, dangerous, attractive manner. He tends to appear wherever she is, and Nora starts to wonder if he is stalking her. Nora finds herself feeling strange about him. She experiences strange events since she met him. A figure in a black ski mask keeps showing up in her life. The first night she see it (let's assume it is a he), he hits her car and starts tearing up the door. When she drives back to her friend Vee's house, there is no damage to the car. It just...disappeared. At this point in the book, I thought the figure in the ski mask was Patch, but he was in some sort of weird state of mind, because I didn't believe he would do act this way so openly around Nora. I didn't think he wanted to scare her like that.

The next day, Nora and Vee meet a guy, new to the school. His name is Elliot, they also meet his friend Jules. They develop a camaraderie with the two. But Nora and Vee have some sleuthing to do, they are going to sneak into the permanent records and look at Patch's file. But when Nora gets to it, it is empty. This makes it more difficult to be around him, because as much as he is seductive, he is scary. He seems genuinely interested, and if it wasn't for Nora's uneasy feeling around him, she would probably accept his invitation to go out.

Elliot is in Nora's gym class. He is a team captain, and picks Nora first, even though she is not good at sports, but he doesn't know that. He is putting on the show of showing her how to swing the bat in the whole hit-on-a-girl-by-putting-arms-around-her-and-show-her-how-to-do-something way. While she is up to bat, she hears a voice in her head, Patch's voice. She looks around, and he is standing behind the fence. He is giving her directions to the game, and he gets a home run, however freaked out about him telepathically communicating with her.

Vee and Nora meet Elliot and Jules at an amusement park. They are in the arcade, and Nora sees Patch there. Nora tries to stay clear of his path. Jules goes to the bathroom, but he doesn't come back. He seems to come up with excuses to leave a lot. Elliot offers the talk to Patch for Nora, but Nora says she will do it herself. She approaches him, and he tries to convince her to ride the Archangel with him, she refuses and goes back. She tells Vee and Elliot she needs a snack so she heads off. On her way there, she see the strange figure again. But then she runs into Patch, and he convinces her if she can ride the ride without screaming, he will tell the coach to switch seats in biology. On the ride she notices her seat belt had come undone and then the coaster veered a sharp turn and she fell out of she ride, onto the tracks and then into the air, falling to her death. But the next thing she knew, the ride pulled into platform. Freaked out, they go back to the arcade, Vee and Elliot and Jules nowhere to be found. They search the parking lot for a while, and can't call because Nora's phone is dead. She is forced to get a ride home from Patch, on his scary motorcycle. At Nora's house, Patch pretty much invites himself inside, and starts making dinner, an awkward/frightening situation. When he is holding the knife, Nora feels like she is in danger. So would I, if I were in her situation. In fact, I think I am a lot like Nora, so I would feel the same in most all situations. So she asks him to puts the knife, down and he denies any possible plans to hurt her. But before she can help it, they are almost kissing, they have an unspoken attraction it seems.

Hush, Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

Well, I am on to my third book of the assignment. I think this is going to be my favorite. I am already 200 pages into it, and I got it last night. Hush, Hush is one of those books that could be boring, because it is long and we haven't figured out what is going on yet, even half way through the book, but it is the opposite of boring. It is riveting, a page turner. It takes place in my home state: Maine. I was excited to read a book where I could really imagine the surroundings.

The main character is Nora. She is a high school student in Coldwater, Maine. (Is this a real place? I don't believe so...) In the first chapter, she is in biology class with her best friend Vee. They are going to start a new topic, sex. They get a new seating chart. Nora is assigned to sit next to a new boy. He is a transfer, never been to school before. He has black eyes. They have to do an assignment in which they studied each other and write an essay on the other person. His name is Patch. He is a sly, cool type of guy. He is brooding, attractive, mysterious. He is flirtatious. He fills his sentence structures with subtle innuendos. But the disturbing thing is, he just knows stuff about Nora. He knows about her school clubs, her beliefs, what colleges she wants to get into, and he just goes on about it, as if he is not talking about her, provoking her. He manages to guess everything about her, and gives off nothing about himself. He seems dangerous.

I believe this book is about angels. The cover is of an angel falling from the sky, and so far in the book there have been many angel references. I will tell you my predictions when I have blogged enough for them to make sense.

...I'll Be Dead- to the end

I have finished the book, but I have definetely not finished blogging about it, so I will quickly sum it up so I can begin blogging about my next book.

Daelyn continues erasing herself. She has less than two weeks now. She spends a lot of time online. But she decides to IM Santana. She asks him if she could borrow his laptop, and spells her name out for him. On through-the-light she sees the way to go "drowning". She decides she will use this method.

The next day, Santana comes over to Daelyn when she is sitting on the bench, pulling a cart of laptops. Computer freak. She borrows his small, new laptop, telling him she only needs it for ten days.

Back online. She goes to the sexual assault forum and tells her story. A popular boy, a little older than she was, he was in eighth grade, started walking by Daelyn after school or in the halls. He got Daelyn to fall for him, though they barely spoke. One day Daelyn forgot her lunch money so she went to her locker to get it, and the boy was there in the hall with his friends. They came up to her and started provoking her. They took her money and ran into the boys bathroom and she chased them. They surrounded her, they touched her and undressed her. They left her in a stall, she was sticking and bloated. They told on her. They told the teacher that she was a pervert, hiding in there and watching the boys. She didn't tell anybody the truth, because they threatened to kill her.

Santana confronts her. The night before he had IMed her but she didn't respond. He says she should stick to the agreement that made for Daelyn to borrow his laptop, she has to communicate with him. He tells her he is lonely. He doesn't have any friends because he is homeschooled. He has Hodgkins Lymphoma. Cancer. Daelyn's not sure if she believes this. Or wants to believe it.

Emily is continuing to be nice to her. Daelyn isn't sure how she feels about that. Santana is pushing their relationship. He grabs her arm and looks at the scars there. He wants to know if she was scared. Good question. They develop an understanding. He calls her, six days before she goes. He asks her if she wants to have dinner on his birthday, which is the same day she is supposed to die. She hangs up on him.

At five days, she comes clean on the final forum for bullied. She tells the story of fat camp. She spent a summer there, in Arizona. The counselors were college students, they yelled at you and called you names. There method for making you lose weight was making you feel so horrible about yourself and making you believe that you were disgusting and ugly, so you wanted to lose the fat faster. They didn't use your name. The kids at camp were called by their weight number. At night, they played tapes to convince you that you were fat and had to lose weight in order to feel good about yourself. It was the worst experience of Daelyn's life. It didn't help her situation. They made her hate herself

At four days, Kim tells Daelyn that she will go to Santana's house in the afternoon. Daelyn doesn't want to do this. But she hasn't a choice. After school Santana is their with his Mom Ariel and they take her into their home. Everything is sterilized. Daelyn hears about their life. About Santana's dad (died before he was born). During this conversation Daelyn actually laughs. Santana hears this, and he's shocked. Ariel has to rush off to work so they are left alone. Daelyn decides she will do homework.

At two days, Chip arranges for Daelyn to go to Santana's place again after school. Oh boy. And Daelyn has been reminded that she can try to talk again now because her vocal chords are probably healed up.

In choir, a mean girl picks on Emily for being fat. Daelyn writes her a note and passes it to her. It says "She'll go to hell. They all will. If hell will even have them. Elbow me if I'm singing flat." It makes Emily laugh.

At Santana's, he orders pizza and makes root beer floats. They sit in on the living room floor while they eat, and Santana asks if she wants to watch the documentary he has made about his life with cancer. It gets a little tough to watch with videos of Santana going through chemotherapy. Santana takes Daelyn's hand. Emotions. Santana kisses Daelyn, but she pulls away soon enough. She can relate it to other times with other intentions. When she is back at home Santana messages her. He apoligizes. She knows about his life now so he asks about hers. He asks about why she has to wear the neck brace. But he says she doesn't have to answer and he signs off. But she keys back anyway. She had drank ammonia and bleach so she could die.

With one day left, Daelyn is sitting with Emily in the chapel at school. They are enjoying each others company. After a while Emily announces that her mom is sending her to fat camp. Daelyn stops. She takes Emily and says "No. Don't. Go." She SAYS it. These are the first words she has spoken in a long, long time. She speaks because she doesn't want Emily to suffer what she did, she doesn't want Emily to turn into her.

Sitting on the bench, Santana sits down next to her quietly, he says he saw her last message. He couldn't believe it. Daelyn starts to cry, and he hold her to his chest while she sobs. He says "You heal me. I heal you". Daelyn bonds herself to him. Then he says she never answered his question. And she asks him aloud "What question?". He is surprised to hear her speak. He asks her again if she wanted to have dinner with him on his birthday.

On the Day of Determination, Daelyn deletes her account. She looks around the room. There is no more Daelyn Rice. She has gotten rid of everything she ever was. Her dad calls to her. She sticks Santana's laptop in her bag and leaves. I was worried that the book would end like this; it sort of leaves it open for you to decide what happens, but I am pretty sure Daelyn chooses life. She has gotten rid of her past. She has found love, a friend. She can no longer be called "freak" anymore. The last line says "It's time. With detemination and purpose, I head into the light." By light I think she means she is heading into a new, better era of her life, and she is ready.

I'll Be Dead...-to page 74

In the fourth grade, Daelyn was invited to a birthday party. She was excited, she had never been invited to anything before. She wore a nice dress and showed up at the house. No one was home when they knocked. They turned around and saw from the second story of the house across the street, a window of girls laughing. Kim didn't get it, saying they had the wrong address, but Daelyn told her mom she had made a mistake, and they should go home. The closest she ever came to having a friend was when a new girl (like her) sat with at lunch one day. She was from a foreign country and sat with Daelyn, talking away at her. Daelyn didn't say anything, she wasn't mute then but she was close to tears that this girl was sharing her company.

Everything is numbered. Daelyn counts everything. Including the days until her life is over. She sits down on the bench, Santana on the other side. He scoots a note toward her. She decides not to ignore it. It says "I'm sorry. I didn't know you couldn't talk. I just assumed you had amazing self control. You'd have to, to spurn my advances." Yes. He says things like that. A lot. He starts playing games with her. He slides her a note asking how to spell her name with a bunch of impossible spellings, and one where she is supposed to fill in her name, asking him out. He asks if she wants him to go away she should blink once. She does. He asks if she is playing hard to get she should blink once. She blinks, then realizes what she just did...he is just taking advantage of the fact that she is mute now. Daelyn runs to the car when her mom pulls up. Santana follows. Persistence.

Daelyn does the math. Fifteen days. That's 360 hours. Her life will have come to a full circle.

Daelyn has been through a lot of bullying. Her dad, Chip, told her "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me". A classic saying, that is so not true. My grandmother is an anti-bullying activist and she says: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will rip my heart out. This is absolutely true. Physical wounds heal much faster than mental wounds. This is the way Daelyn feels also. She has not gotten over any of the childhood names she was called, all the times she was excluded.

Daelyn has 2 weeks left now. She is on her computer in the morning and discovers a note Santana left her. She opens it up and it says Hervehotsu. On the back it says IM me. She doesn't want to set herself up like that. At school, she gets a test grade back. It's a D-. The girl next to her grabs her paper and extends the legs on the D so it looks like an A-. She smiles at Daelyn. Why did people have to make contact now?

By The Time You Read This...-to page 55

Daelyn's mom offers to take her for a drive to a place they used to go when she was little. She doesn't want to go but she doesn't have much of a choice. While they are driving, Kim (her mom) tells Daelyn a story about how in high school she tried out for Pom-poms. Kim isn't athletic at all so she didn't really want to, but her friend Bonnie asked her to because they had to try out in pairs. Kim realized that she actually wanted to be in Pom-poms, she had never been popular and this was her chance. They did the routine and Kim did better than she had ever done. She had her hopes up. The list came out. They were the only team where one person made it and one person didn't. Daelyn had thought that her mom had actually made it. She didn't. And it just proves further to Daelyn that she can't trust anything in life. She can't control the things that happen to her.

The place they were heading for was closed down, so they turned back around. Daelyn wonders if her mom actually knew this. When they get home, Daelyn finds that her dad has installed a router to her computer so they can monitor her websites. They are not helping her. They are just taking away her privacy. Only another reason to take her life.

Day seventeen, sitting on the bench after school. The boy, Santana is sitting there still. He is using a little laptop, reading the weather, which he loves. He is trying to attract Daelyn's attention, and pulls out his pet rat. She is repulsed by this, and tries to walk away. He apologizes and asks her to come back, and she does because it's either that or go back into the school. Her mom pulls up to the curb and runs away from him. She gets in the car and motions for her mom to drive but Santana comes up to the window and introduces himself, and his rat. Kim gets a little freaked out. Santana backs up and they drive away.

On through-the-light, Daelyn is trying to decide a way to go. She reads about carbon monoxide poisoning and jumping off buildings. She hears her dad in the hallway. She decides she wants to die at home. She doesn't want to be mutilated so badly she won't be able to be identified, she doesn't want her parents to suffer the unnecessary.

Day sixteen. Daelyn is in chorus. This is completely ironic since Daelyn doesn't have the ability to sing. It's sort of a joke. It makes the other kids feel awkward. She doesn't even pretend to sing, but she only has to endure standing there because she wants to see what the others have reduced her to: a joke.

She sits on the bench outside, Santana a mere foot or so away. If at any point in his one way conversation, she feels any sort of change of heart or attraction, she tells herself to ignore it, to push away all feeling. She doesn't want any one to come into her life now, she feels it's too late for that. It is a shame too because, as nerdy and lame as he is, Santana is a nice guy, he just has abolutely no experience with women. He starts to talk more about his life and asks if she wants to IM. But then her mom pulls up she gets in the car and Santana follows her there. He introduces himself more formally and she introduces herself back, giving away Daelyn's name. When he says Daelyn is a "women of few words", Kim also gives away that Daelyn cannot speak. Daelyn rolls up the window so she won't say anymore.

BTTYRTIBD-to page 37

I feel bad for Daelyn, because she has to eat all of her food blended. That's disgusting. I have a lot of reasons to feel bad for her. She doesn't trust her dad. She can't laugh. She is utterly and desperately unhappy.

Daelyn spends some time everyday with the unusual site through-the-light. She reads the message boards, the list of people whose date has already gone by, and she counts how old they were. She wants to go. She hates life.

She sits on the bench still, waiting for her parents. The boy still sits with her. I'm not sure if he has picked up that she cannot talk, he just thinks she is ignoring him. He tries to talk to her, make small talk, or strange talk. He tries to make her laugh, but it's too late for Daelyn, she doesn't want anybody new in her life, even if they are just preppy losers. She ignores him by reading her romance novel. Her dad pulls up at the curb, and she escapes.

On through-the-light there is a section called "ways to go". They rate effectiveness, pain and availability. She reads the section about exsanguination (bleeding to death). She reads the facts about the best way to do and realizes she had made mistakes when she had tried this. (So I was right about this being her suicide of choice). Daelyn decides she is going to rid of any trace of her existence. She is going to throw out all of her old junk, and she has twenty-one days to do it.

Next day on through-the-light, Daelyn is reading the forum. People write about how many times they have tried. Some end up in a hospital. Daelyn has had that happen. It's a hectic situation that ruins everyone's day. But it won't happen again.

Day nineteen, Daelyn writes in the forum titled Bullied. She writes about being picked on for being overweight. Others write back, they know how she feels. Her mom enters the room and Daelyn clicks down the screen. She is just saying hi, the kind of hi that you cannot wait to get over because you are busy doing something else that you don't want to continue with her right there.

She has an appointment with her parents and her therapist. From what I counter, Daelyn is an only child. That must be tough, carrying all of your parents hopes and dreams, just you alone, no one to fall back on. The therapist asks if she has been happy. Her dad says she has a friend which shocks her mom and the therapist. He is talking about the weird boy. Her mom doesn't like it. She says he is so punk or gangster. He is so far from that it's not even okay. Daelyn's mom must be not exactly in with the new. Daelyn writes a note that says no. This disappoints her parents.

I want to know if Daelyn will actually follow through with the suicide. I think she will. I think she will be happier that way.