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.

The Sixth Target

The Sixth Target by James Patterson was a quick and easy read, but also a good one. It follows three cases worked by a homicide detective in San Francisco, Detective Sergeant Boxer. The first is the case of a mentally disturbed man who randomly murders five people on a ferry. Then, there was a rash of kidnapping/murders. Finally, there were multiple homicides in a single apartment building. I liked the fact that there were multiple cases going on at once, as oppose to just a single ongoing case. It was more interesting and more realistic to see numerous cases at once. There was even a hostage situation at the end of the book (when the kidnappers were being apprehended) that was more realistic then most television shows-the second the women holding the hostage popped her head out long enough, she was stopped by a sniper bullet. That's the cold, hard truth.

Fortunate Son, The End

I have only been reading this book for a little over a week, but I already finished it. It was an amazing book, even though it was very sad. The young boy, Thomas, goes off to live with his father in a bad neighborhood. He stops going to school, and spends all of his time in an abandoned alley behind his house. Here, he discovers many things such as small animals, birds, and a dead body. In the meantime, his "brother" Eric is leading an upper-class life in a nice neighborhood, however neither one of them has forgotten the other. Thomas becomes a homeless man living on the streets, and Eric lives in a dorm at UCLA. Eventually, they become reunited and suddenly. They end up across the country, and Thomas is in the hospital numerous times due to gunshot wounds and car crashes. In the end, in a crazy twist of circumstances, their problems are solved when a friend calls in political favors. They make it back to L.A., and you'll have to read the book to find out the entire story.

Fortunate Son, Pt. I

I just started Fortunate Son by Walter Mosley, and so far this book is good but very sad. It is about a young African-American boy named Tommy born with a hole in his heart. His mother befriends a white doctor, who convinces her to take him out of the plastic case he is trapped in. The boy survives, and his mother begins dating the doctor. They move in together, and become a family (along with the doctor's son). All is well until the boy's mother, Branwyn, dies. Tommy is sent to live with his abusive father, who claims he loves him but seems to want nothing to do with him. Tommy, however, doesn't seem affected by all of this. He goes about his life trying to find the goodness in all things, even though things are pretty bleak. So far, I am only on page 113, but I can tell that this is a very deep book and I can't wait to read more!

In Cold Blood, The End

The ending of this book was somewhat happy, somewhat sad. The two men responsible for the Clutter murders were finally captured, arrested after a confession, and sentenced to death. A few years later, they were executed by hanging in a Kansas State Penitentiary. Although these two men brutally murdered an innocent family of four for only fifty dollars (all that was gained in the robbery), one still must feel somewhat bad for them, or at least one of them. Perry Smith had an extremely violent and troubled childhood. His parents were separated, and he lived with his mother in San Francisco. His mother drank too much, and he was soon in the care of an orphanage where he was beaten and brutalized. These memories were never forgotten, which no doubt led him on a path to violence. However, this is not an excuse for murder, which the jury in this case realized. Smith showed remorse before his hanging, while his partner joked around. The agents on the case viewed this hanging, and related that it did not make them feel any better. Maybe they will never have consolation for this brutal crime.