Today was a day of relaxation and reading. Emma had a sleepover with
me and Olivia, and we all slept in. After talking for a while, we got
up and ate breakfast before heading off to Cameron Village Regional
Library to hang out. I had told myself that I was not getting any more
books, because I already had a stack of fifteen in my room (some of
which I have renewed five times). Ha ha. Like I could ever go to the
library and resist getting books. Within about three minutes of walking
in, I picked up two that were on shelves of teen books recommended by
the Cameron Village librarians. Afterward, I sat with Olivia and Emma
and worked on an online class about the creation of modern-day Israel
that I started a bit before school ended. I find it quite interesting,
and no, I'm not being sarcastic). We spent roughly two hours at the
library and then went home to eat lunch. After lunch, I read my newly
borrowed book while Emma and Olivia went to the store to pick up
ingredients for a pineapple cake. I was addicted to the book. It is
called
Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi, and is dystopian fiction with
emotional romance (which I am a sucker for, unfortunately propagating
that teenage-girl stereotype; although, don't get me wrong, I do like a
lot of other genres as well). The book is beautifully crafted, and the
most striking aspect of the author's style is that she often uses
crossed-out sentences. It's like Whitman using parenthesis to weave in
his personal thoughts into
Leaves of Grass or Junot Diaz using
parenthesis to represent the silencing minority groups experience (shout
out thank you to Mrs. Genesky and Ms. Hicks/Mrs. Carpenter for those
scraps of knowledge!). The crossing out of sentences allows the
audience to have a unique relationship with the main character--the
sentences represent the private thoughts of the protagonist, and how she
has been silenced and neglected all of her life.
After
making the pineapple cake with Emma and Olivia, Mama and all of us went
to our neighbors' house to see twenty goats. That might sound strange,
especially since we live eight minutes from downtown Raleigh, but our
neighbors rented twenty goats for a day and night to eat all of the
vegetation in their backyard. It was awesome. There was an adorable
Nigerian Pygmy goat, a La Mancha goat (from the area of La Mancha of
Spain, with strangely-shaped ears that is an adaptation of the breed),
and a bunch of other more conventional goats of all different colors and
fur lengths. I walked among the goats, petting them and getting used
to them as they ate green leaves, vines, and stripped bark off of
trees. One goat approached me, Emma, and Olivia at different times and
tasted our fingers to see if they were leafy greens. It was hilarious,
and I ended up giving it a head rub that it thoroughly enjoyed.
Once
I was done hanging out with the goats, my family and I went Millbrook
High School's Dance and Drama Awards Ceremony. Afterward, I read for
hours until I finished
Shatter Me at about 11:00pm. It was amazing, and I immediately found out that there is a sequel called
Unravel Me. I've already put it on hold at the library, since they are all currently checked out. I can't wait to read it!
No comments:
Post a Comment