Get Shorty

I just finished the book Get Shorty by Elmore Leanord, and can't wait to see the movie. This was a great book about a loan shark from Brooklyn who moves to Miami, then L.A. and becomes involved in the movie business. I read the New York Times book review for this book, called "The Shylock is the Good Guy" by Nora Ephron. Although the review was not written very well, I do agree with the point it made that this was a great book. The review jumps from event to event in the book very fast in the beginning, but evens out when it gets to the main part of the book. When Chili Palmer, the main character, becomes a representative for a famous movie producer, the heat is on. The review gives information about the characters, but does not go all of the way through. For instance, its description of one of the characters is "a female lead who used to scream at slime people in Harry Zimm's movies...". Personally, I do not thank that it was written very well and does not seem like a professional author. Fortunately for her, she was still writing a review on a great book.

A Hope In The Unseen

I just finished the book "A Hope In The Unseen" by Richard Suskind, and I think that it was a great book. This book was the story of a boy who attending an extremely dangerous high school in Washington D.C. At Ballou Senior High School, Cedric Jennings (the main character of the book) is at the top of all of his classes. He is one of only a handful of people in his entire class planning on attending college. Although he is made fun of and accused of "wanting to be white", he persists through it all and is accepted in to Brown University. At Brown, he has trouble assimilating in to the culture of a university that is mostly white. He sticks to himself due to his trouble adapting, but slowly opens up. He meets another Black student named Chiniqua, and they start dating. He attends parties with her at the all black dorm, and begins to make more friends. Although he hits rocky points with his stereotypically white room mate Rob, they eventually are able to become friends. Cedric is able to adapt to the culture much better then he had originally thought.

Let America Be America Again

I took a break from the book that I was reading to read Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes. This was a quick read, but I wanted to read it since we are starting our poetry unit in class this quarter. It was a good book, a collection of poems that told the stories of the plight of black Americans and minorities. Hughes discussed the problems of wars, poverty, and more. He uses very vivid language, and you can clearly picture everything that he says is going on. This book included a number of poems varying in length and in style. It is clear to see that Hughes likes to vary his writing, but usually keeps it on the very broad topic of his longing for peace and equality for all men. I usually don't get in to poetry very much, but I can tell that during this poetry unit I am going to be reading a lot of Langston Hughes.