The Lovely Bones

            When someone you love dies, how do you even think about moving on; because moving on means
accepting and accepting means believing that it really happened. This is an idea the is strongly portrayed in the book The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. The book shows the aftermath of a 14 year old girl who is brutally raped and murdered. But, this book is unique, because it is told by the girl who was killed, Susie. The way the the book is written allows the reader to see how all the characters dealt with Susie's death, and how Susie had to watch everyone she loved, move on. Traumatic events change a family, but this book really shows that everyone heals, but not always in the same way they were broken. The characters in the book were able to change and grow after accepting what had happened, and trying to move forward

            The person who was actually the most affected by Susie's death, was the person who could move on the easiest. Susie's brother Buckley was barely old enough to remember what had happened with Susie, but it was always around him, lurking in the shadows. Buckley was 4 or 5 when his parents decided to tell him that Susie was never coming home again; "'Susie is dead,' unable to make it fit in the rules of any game, 'do you know what that means?'" This was said on page 69 of the Lovely Bones after Susie's death. Susie's death allowed Buckley to grow up in a way that would have never been possible, Buckley let go of Susie by helping his father let go, and becoming more mature. "At twelve my brother had become serious and considerate. Even if he didn't pay for the food or cook the meals, he managed the house." Moving on and helping everyone else move on was the way that Buckley mature beyond his years and become his own person.

            The mother also changed drastically from finding out about Susie, to being able to accept the reality. "He would not really look at her for the rest of the day, not really look into her and see the woman her had known her to be before the day they had taken the news of my death." The mother changed, she felt helpless like there was nothing that could happen that would lift the weight she had on her chest. So she cheated. She cheated on her husband and her family, and then she left. But as horrible as that sounds now, she needed to leave, and be a person outside of a mother. She was able to be her own persona and accept what happened. When she came home she remembered, but was not pained, she was glad she remembered and happy she still had a family to come home to. " She began to think of the rooms in our house and the hours that she had worked so hard to forget spent inside them. Like fruit put up in jars and forgotten about, the sweetness seemed even more distilled as she returned."

            It was a necessity that all the characters found some way to deal with the tragedy. It allowed them all to grow as people outside of the family with the murdered daughter. But what makes this book even more heartbreaking is that Susie watches the people she loves move on and that she hopes they never forget her. By the end Susie realizes that she will always be apart of the people she left, whether its in memory or in her sister Lindsey's case, the name of a child. Moving on is in the same part of life that death in, its not easy, but this book shows that life cannot continue to make you happy until one does move on.

In sickness and in health

The  baby,
held in the never waivering arms
the arms
attached to a heart that's full of love and pride

The baby feels like it's falling
it is no longer the missing link in the heart of its mother
Though it will never be out of place

The baby is to big to fit in the warm and comforting arms
though often needs to.
How could someone so grown, feel like ice
and shatter like glass

The girl tansforms
Her bones poke out from her skin
Her hair falls in piles,
on the always spinning floor

She's happy now
she is no longer overtaken by a nagging feeling
a feeling that has tormented her for years
Forbidding happiness for the people who actually have to suffer.
But that will end, she will grow a better feeling
and the family will no longer gasp for air
they will just have it

It's Kind of a Funny Story

In the book, It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini the main character Craig suffers from depression. After the depression worsens, he checks himself into psychiatric ward. Throughout the whole book, Craig's relationships with the people in his life, either grow or fall apart, as the people grow and change.

Craig's relationship with his father changes throughout the book. At the beginning of the book, Craig's father is really worried about Craig and walks on eggshells around him. They never talk about what's really going on, and instead trying to talk about good things that make Craig even more upset, because he feels scared that he can't handle the bad, in order to see the good. But by the end of the book Craig and his father grow very close. Craig's father understands by the end, that Craig is hurting, but also understands that he needs a father that understands him, and who Craig can talk to.

Craig's relationship with Nia also changes throughout the book. Nia is the girl that Craig had a crush on for so long, but she was dating his best friend. Craig always thought that Nia was perfect and that there was nothing that she couldn't do, but then Craig actually talked to her. It turned out that Nia also was suffering from clinical depression. Craig became close to her, believing that they understood each other and that they were special. But at the end of the book when Nia comes to visit Craig at the hospital, she gets all freaked out, and calls Craig crazy. Nia and Craig kiss but then Craig realizes, Nia is using him, and that she is not perfect, and is not even close to it.

Craig grew throughout the book. He realized he wasn't hopeless and that he needed to take a closer look at his life. Craig needed to try and find the good in his life, and not care as much about what people thought. Craig learned who was worth loving and who was worth being depressed about losing.

Justice Denied

            In the article "Justice Denied" which appears in the New York Times Upfront Magazine, it talks about how in many places in the south, murders, that had be racially motivated and taken place in the 60's, are still not solved today. The article "Justice Denied" is not only about how these black men were brutally murdered, it was about how these men, didn't get the justice that they deserved. During the late 50's and early 60's people could often kill a black man or torture one, and would not get caught because even the government would often agree that it was deserved. Justice should be allowed, even long after a persons murder, to make sure people know, they can't do something so horrible without getting punished.

            So that's exactly what the families of these men, murdered in the 60's wanted; they wanted justice. People in northeastern Louisiana wrote a letter to the FBI. This letter "expressed grave concern that the crime would go unpunished because the local police were probably complicit." This meant that the people were afraid that the police were actually involved in some of these brutal murders. The people turned to the FBI because they weren't getting the justice their family deserved from the local police. 

            But, the FBI didn't do anything either. Five decades later the cases remained unsolved. The reason why people never fought hard for their families justice is because they were afraid. "Relatives or victims were often afraid to come forward, lacking faith in judicial system, and fearing retaliation from groups like the Ku Klux Klan. The FBI didn't do much until till the pass of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act, where they would investigate racial motivated crimes. Even after this act was passed, the FBI had limited information and limited ways to get information about the cases. Sometimes the federal jurisdiction on a case was limited, or the people who witnessed the crime had forgot important details. 

             In 2011, the FBI sent letters to about all of the families of those killed in the civil rights era for racial reasons about how they could not have enough evidence to convict anyone and get to the bottom of the murder. "Setting aside whether the FBI could have done more, I respect the dignity with which they are accepting responsibility for letting families know how the justice system had failed them." this was said by Margret Burnham, founder of Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project in response to the letters the FBI sent out. The FBI were not able to give the people the justice they deserved. It took a long time for the FBI to do anything, and that's just wrong. People deserve justice no matter how long after the incident, they will always deserve it. 

To Kill a Mockingbird: Revised

The world we live in now has not always been as kind to people who are different, as it is today. The book, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, deals with many different issues surrounding life in a small southern town. This southern town is a town that cannot except people’s differences, and were raised to treat the people differently because them.  The book tells a story about a little girl, Scout, and her brother, Jem, as her dad tries to prove a black’s man’s innocents. The town that Scout and her family live in is called Maycomb, which is in southern Alabama. In Maycomb there are many different types of social classes, and each one of them are treated a different way depending on which one they are in. Money affects most of the character's actions and the progression of many of the issues in the book.

Money affects the way Scout acts towards people in the book. For example in the book, Scout tries to tell her teacher how this boy is different, and how to act around him. Scout tells her teacher that the Cunningham’s never taken anything they can't pay back, when her teacher offers a quarter to a Cunningham. Scout speaks to her teacher in such a way, that the teacher gets mad at her. The way that Scout talked to her teacher, was like, "Duh! Of course they never take anything they can't pay back." Scout says it like that because that is the way she has always known it to be, almost like it's tattooed to their faces.

            Money also affects the things that some people cherish, that others take for granted. For example in the book To Kill a Mockingbird it talks about how the blacks’ church is smaller and less fancy than the whites church, because they don't have as much money. When Scout and Jem offers the raise money to help build them a new church, they turn them down. These people didn’t turn Scout and Jem down because Scout and Jem were white, the turned them down because they had pride. They believed in order for them to be proud of their church, they had to work to build it themselves; so then they can say, you don’t have to be rich to accomplish something that means something.

            Money affects many of the issues in the book. Money affects the issue of discrimination, but not just between whites and blacks. For example in the book To Kill a Mockingbird Mayella says in the court while giving a statement, "An' if you fine, fancy gentlemen ain't gonna do nothin' about it, then you're just a bunch of lousy, yella, stinkin' cowards, the - the whole bunch of ya, and your fancy airs don't come to nothin'. Your Ma'am'in' and your Miss Mayellarin' - it don't come to nothin', Mr. Finch, not... no." This shows that Mayelle realizes that she is treated differently, but also realizes that these people don't know anything about what she is dealing with, and yet they believe that they are better than her. This kind of discrimination has to do with money. Mayella is a white girl, but she was raised in a poor family, so people feel like they can walk all over her.  

            Money changed a lot of people’s ideas and really put some issues in new a prospective during the book. But money doesn't only make things complicated in the book, but also in the real world. Money determines where you can live, how you can live, and how hard you need to work. Yes, money doesn't make you happy, but it puts a different perspective on everything, usually a more sheltered one, for those people who have more money. People who have more money don’t value what they have as much. For example like in the book To Kill a Mockingbird, the blacks’ want to be proud of their church, because in this small country town, these people didn’t have much that they could say was their own; so they valued the church, it showed them they could do anything. Money shouldn’t be the things that weighs on people’s minds every day, and keeps them from sleeping, but it does. It affects the ways people see the world, and the way Scout, and Jem, and their father, and everyone in Maycomb sees the world.