Engish Homework

1. Peeling The Onion by Wendy Orr, is a heart breaking tale about a 17 year old girl, Anna Duncan whom has recently been through a devastatingly horrible car crash, that had a large impact on her life. The novel is written if first person, from Anna's point of view, the clever use of first person by Orr allows you to get a glimpse into Anna's personal life which includes her family, friends and love interests.

At the beginning of Anna's recovery her friends Caroline and Jenny claim their dedication to Anna's friendship even though she's become disabled (in a way). Unfortunately Anna and Jenny are soon abandoned by Caroline, in her desperation to get away from Anna's 'gloominess' or 'pessimistic' attitude. Anna also gives the reader an idea of what her family is like with her mother, father and siblings personalities that are described through various encounters and situations. Love interests play a large part of the novel, with Anna's boyfriend Hayden and mysterious Luke (one of Anna's mothers employees). Anna battles an emotional conflict with herself, finding she's more attracted to Luke than Hayden, and not wanting to hold Hayden back.

The struggle for Anna to find her true self, and re-evaluate her new life, being unable to participate in her lifelong hobby, karate. Basically Anna is "peeling" back the layers of her old life, in an attempt to find her new and true self.

2.The Three Concerned by Leon Gellert

The Man
He lies forgotten 'neath the watching skies,
The blood upon his bayonet scarlet bright;
The red moon shining in his glazed eyes,
The 'Last Post' crying, crying in the night.

The Woman
She proudly sits within her home of gloom,
And reads and reads his lines with wistful smile,
Then, eyes aglisten, seeks the empty room
(And he within his bloody grave the while.)

The Child
His wooden war-horse stands beside his bed,
His tiny pillow holds a head of gold.
He dreams of all the things his father said,
He dreams of all the tales his father told.

*My Verse

The Ghost Man
Her tears run fiercely and her face is ruby red,
The mourning and desolation of those whom are dead,
Yet naivness and innocence lay asleep in the next room,
Who thought that his fathers life would end in happiness and not in doom.

3. Chasing Harry Winston by Lauren Weisberger
Chasing Harry Winston by Lauren Weisberger is the third installment of the three book series 'The Devil Wears Prada'. The novel is based on the friendship and growth that three New York City women experience after each of them discovers something new in their lives at the beginning of the book. The plot endures some harsh twist and unraveling scandals that have you sitting on the edge of your seat, begging for more, Weisberger basically has you wishing that the remaining novels of the installment are presented in movie form, just so you get through it all that quicker. A quick overview of the novel - Three best friends Emmy, Adriana and Leigh make a pact over raspberry mojitos one night, hoping that the upcoming year takes a turn for the best. Emmy plans to find a man on every continent for some no-strings fun after she changes careers and becomes a world travelling food critic. Adriana takes a vow that she's going to secure a five-carat Harry Winston diamond (a wedding ring) she does this in a no-thought situation where she is accused of being a women who sleeps around, without thinking she claims that she's going to get married and be true to only one man. And then there's Leigh, basically her life's perfect, perfect job, house and boyfriend except there's one thing missing, she just doesn't feel right. But all that changes when bad boy slash literary luminary Jesse Chapman causes havoc.

I was amazed at the amount of mature context was contained in this novel, extremely mature references and comments are made, because of this I would recommend that this novel be read by persons over 13/14 years of age.

4. For my Wide Reading Assessment, I'm doing 'The Devil Wears Prada' a series written by Lauren Weisberger. For my assessment I've decided to do character, focusing on the aray of main character heroines that are included. Every book that Wiseberger has written in the series has contained a main character heroine, well actually the entire series is physically based on these heroines and tells the stories of their mistakes and how they resolve the harm they have caused. The reason I've decided to nominate my characters instead of my author is because I believe that the stories that the characters take you through gives an exemplary example of what the modern woman should aspire to be like. The heroines give examples of the ideal personality including honesty, kindness, helpfulness and much much more, but not only do the characters show off these qualities but they do it in such ways that young women, or whatever aged women would feel obliged to aquire such characteristics. This feeling is acheived through the persuasion from guilt that the characters experience, not only guilt but also the fact that they start off with, lose and regain these qualities through the experiences they have such as bad decisions, unkindness, wrongdoing(s) and many more bad acts of character.