Book 5 Gone Girl "Spoilers"

The Stages of Amy Dunne in Gone Girl

Stage 1. Amy and Nick have a great relationship, they feel really close and alike. It is hard for either of them to get angry at each other, no matter what the situation. Even when Nick doesn’t show up at the get together with her friends, they say they don’t like “Dancing monkeys” which they call husbands who have to do many tasks for their wife to make them happy. While Amy and Nick are just happy to be together.

Stage 2. After they both lose their jobs, they begin getting more irritated with each other. Nick seems to always get his way and convinces Amy that marriage is about compromise. When Nick convinces Amy to move to a small town in Missouri, he doesn’t even let her bring her bed.

Stage 3.Amy starts to resent Nick for not being the perfect husband. Like never remembering their past experiences when Amy created a treasure hunt leading Nick to all the great moments they had. Also Nick and Amy’s tensions were never higher, constantly fighting and slowly falling apart from each other. Unlike at the beginning of their marriage when they thought everything was perfect and easy because they loved each other so much and their scenario was perfect, each had their jobs as writer’s still, now Amy is stuck in the house and Nick working in a bar.

Stage 4. Amy’s bad experiences with Nick all build up, she starts devising her plan a year in advance, blind from her hatred for Nick for not being a good spouse. She wants to make him suffer, she creates a fake diary trying to convince anyone who reads it that she believes Nick actually wanted to kill her saying he had become violent and possessive, even making her try to buy a gun. She planned to create a scene to look like someone was murdered. Covering every small detail to make sure there was no chance of being caught. She made clues to lead Nick to start to love her again, just another attempt to control Nick, even though he thinks it is too late since she already talked about their marriage deteriorating.

Stage 5. Amy at this point has become completely psycho, only wanting Nick to suffer, even if it cost her life. She was willing to drown herself when she ran out of money, making it harder for Nick to get out of his current situation. She starts manipulating her first boyfriend, which is easy since he is so obsessed with her. She hates him and doesn’t care about his feelings or life. He holds her hostage for a while, not feeding her much because she had gained weight. Amy is so emotionally unstable at this point that when she sees Nick on the TV, describing his failures as a husband and their love becoming more and more distant. She falls in love with him once again, despite the chance that he might be lying, her captor won’t let her leave, he loves her too much to let her go again. Even after she framed his mother of attacking her many years ago, he was still obsessed with Amy, only wanting her in the world. Amy at this point only wants what she gets, which is what she always got growing up being the daughter of two successful parents who wrote a book about her. She kills him with no regard for his life.

Stage 6. Amy gets back home and manipulates everyone except for Nick. He knows she framed him and is a cold blooded murder, he can’t just say it, no one will believe him. He also realizes he can’t just leave her, doing that would cause him to be alone for the rest of his life, he gets angry and violent, threatening Amy. She also reveals she is pregnant to Nick, knowing he won’t leave, he won’t be like his dad. She finally did it, she controlled Nick and can have him do whatever she wants, Nick had finally become her dancing monkey.

Reading Wishlist

Wishlist

A Game of Thrones

by George R.R. Martin

tagged: to-read

The Maze Runner

by James Dashner

tagged: to-read

The Book Thief

by Markus Zusak

tagged: to-read

The Bourne Identity

by Robert Ludlum

tagged: to-read

Ashfall

by Mike Mullin

tagged: to-read

Shoeless Joe Book Trailer

Book Talk

Post 6: Room

Robbie Hicks

 5 Things Emma Donoghue does well with Character Development

Emma Donoghue does a great job with Room by making the characters realistic and easily relatable. You could believe that this book could be written by a 5 year old, which usually isn’t a good thing, but this is a special book. The Jack describes his surroundings and events happening around him are exactly what you’d expect a 5 year old to talk and the other characters that are added in later in the book just feel like part of your family or friends.

 1.    She makes you think Jack is talking to you

  You could think this book was written by a 5 year old who was trapped in a Room. The way Jack describes everything is just how you would imagine a 5 year old to speak, we’ve all been there. Jack is different, however, he didn’t get the same social interactions and outdoor experiences, so when he sees the world we’ve been living in all our life, his mind explodes. Everything he knew has changed and we get to follow his journey through our everyday life.  

 2.    She makes Likable characters

The thing I liked most about Room is the characters were all likable and different. Usually, my favorite character would be one of the main ones, that’s the ones who you learn most about, you see their reasoning and thoughts, they are usually the ones you can connect more too, primarily because you know more. In this book however, my favorite character is Leo, who doesn’t talk very much and is only in about 20 pages, but he seems like such a cool guy. He knows the family the least of anyone Jack meets, because he is his step-grandpa, but yet he gets him closer to his family than anyone, by simply playing with Lego’s with Jack.

3.      Informal conversations

The conversations between characters are not straightforward and lame. She makes them seem like a real conversation people have. Like Jack constantly asking stupid questions about the world, which is understandable because his mom is a liar. It does not sound like scripted writing; she makes it seem like conversation we would all have. It’s about everyday stuff too so it’s easy to understand

4. Realistic

Donoghue seems like she learned a lot about children’s behavior to write this. She described the problems that Jack may have, in terms of social and mental problems in a really convincing way, like she’s an expert in the field. It sounds like something you would hear from a real doctor, which hopefully you haven’t. It doesn’t sound too good. She doesn’t make it seem like a fairy tale where everything works out for the best, the mom’s depression seems like a legit thing to happen. Even though it’s a pretty messed up thing to do leave your kid, who has only known that you exist, by himself with a world that couldn’t imagine his problems.

5. Relatability

                I feel like anyone could relate to this book in some way, maybe not to the extent of being trapped in a dungeon for about five years, but maybe you can relate to the medical aspect, constantly being poked and prodded to find out what’s wrong, maybe you can relate to the family problems, or maybe being a celebrity, constantly having someone looking at you taking pictures and trying to intrude your privacy. Whatever it is, I feel like everyone has a similar story to Jack’s experiences and it makes it easy to sympathize with the story, making it a more engaging read.

                

Blog Post #4

 Shoeless Joe needs a little tweaking before it will become a good adaption, I think you will need to make the Characters a little more likeable and go more in depth in learning about them. At the moment the main character just seems a little emotionless, when he's sees ghost on his lawn, he stays calm and doesn't even wonder what is going on, he just has a conversation with a man who has been dead for many years. The only thing you can see about him is that he likes baseball and his family, and he doesn't like his religious in-laws. I think that a good choice in casting would be Brad Pitt, because who doesn't like Brad Pitt and he also seems like he could resemble Ray Kinsella. There are also some scenes that need to be cut, like when the store gets robbed. It doesn't help the plot at all, it jumps from a laid back baseball book to a hostage situation and then it just ends in an anticlimactic way, so I think that scenes like this should be cut to keep the subject simple. This book should most likely be adapted into a movie. It doesn't have the long lasting plot that could work in a TV-show, it has a short story that is perfect for a movie. This movie needs a really stereotypical sports movie sound track, it should play really inspirational music as the camera slowly zooms out from the stadium, giving the overview of the whole thing.

Book 1: Project

Are you a fan of Mark Haddon’s creative tale about mystery and deception? The adventure that always kept us on tilt with clever twists, some call it The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night- Time, but the true fans out there can call it their life. Do you not want your journey with Christopher to end? I know just what you need, Christopher’s play set. This kit includes his most prized possessions maps of London, a toy train, a toy rat, red car key chain, rocket ship, flashcards emotions such as happy J and sadL, and no worries, none of these items are yellow. This kit will let you continue your adventure with Christopher, in a sense; it’s almost like your partners!

Christopher in Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time always likes to know where he is, so when he is in a new place, he needs a map so he can orient himself wherever he is. With this collection of maps you will never be lost no matter where you are, well in London at least. The toy train will remind you too keep time tables like Christopher does, with this pack you will never get lost in time, you will always know where or when you are and where you need to be. Keeping a schedule will help you stay calm. You will always be able to tell where you need to be. With this kit, you will never have to worry about being alone. Toby will always be with you. Toby is Christopher’s loyal sidekick (Even if he does occasionally escape) and now he can be yours too, only this mouse doesn’t need to be fed or like the real Toby, cleaned. Also, Christopher’s good luck charm can now be yours, and you will always have a good day like Christopher’s, “So because it was a Super Good Day I decided to walk into the park with Mrs. Alexander even though it scared me.”(Haddon 73) When you carry this key chain every day will be a super good day and you can have the confidence to do anything you want, unless of course, you see 5 yellow cars, then you should be careful. You will always be happy when you see the image of this rocket ship, like Christopher’s shown enthusiasm “I knew that it meant "happy," like when I'm reading about the Apollo space missions..." You can use this object to remind you of your dreams, and enjoy just the mere thought of doing what you’ve always wanted. He doesn’t show this much happiness to many things besides math, so you can use this as motivation, to achieve your greatest goal. You can have as much dedication as he had throughout the story to finish what he had started and uncover the whole truth, even if he couldn’t really understand it. These items will also help you with your social abilities, with the help of Christopher’s friend Siobhan “I got Siobhan to draw lots of these faces and then write down next to them exactly what they meant. I kept the piece of paper in my pocket and took it out when I didn't understand what someone was saying.”(Haddon 3) These cards will help you envision all the different faces in the story and emotions shown in the story. You will never have to worry about being confused by the tone of someone, you can read their facial expressions with childish ease, but you have to be quick if you want to get a real accurate description of their feelings.

            With this play set you will be able to work with Christopher’s ideas and better understand his logical ways.  This kit will allow you to be in the position of Christopher’s thought process, play with the objects he did and understand his confusion at things that most of us see as non-important. If you think about what he says about red cars and time, he seems pretty reasonable and you start looking the world different, maybe not a whole lot, but if you ever see 5 red cars in a row maybe you could think it will be a good day. If you’re bored on a rainy afternoon, you can play around with the toys too, and live through Christopher’s routine.

Post 2: What is a Book

A book is...

 a gateway, leading you to new ideas and a different way of thinking. Whether on a piece of paper or a digital device, the message of the story is all that matters. A book is not a sacred way of getting a story told, even if a historian later on in life found a new work on a kindle, it would still be praised as what it is, an adventure for your mind. It just has to get you thinking about the world around you in a way that actually impacts you in real life. A book is like a lighter, it sparks something in you that leads to other things igniting in your mind, changing you for the better. The words are all that I think of when I think of a book, I don’t think a book is good if it’s hard cover, paperback, or e-reader, I just remember the words and ideas that the book brings up. Maybe sometimes the feel of turning the pages rather than clicking a button is more satisfying and makes it feel more authentic, it makes you think of the author and what situation he could be in at this moment, if it was written in the 1800s or early 1900s, you can imagine the author writing on scrap paper ripped out of his note book flipping page after page looking at his masterpiece, trying to find a way to make it better. You can’t really feel that when your sliding your finger on a smooth surface, magically teleporting the old text out of the way, to reveal the new set, informing you on what comes next in this adventure. This makes it a totally different era, we feel like we are researching an ancient artifact, written in a different time, but this doesn’t matter, a book to me, is just information ready to be engraved in someone’s mind.

#1: Why I read.

I read after a long day to cool down and relax. Books calm my nerve and help me sleep after constantly running around exerting my energy. Its a laid back way to get interesting information about a past even or a fake story that just plays with your mind. A TV show is not nearly as good as a book at helping you close your eyes and rest for the next day, TV shows are a little to fast paced and loud, books are at your own pace, and let you go back if your drowsiness gets in the way of your reading. Books kind of act like a lullaby with words, they slowly sing words to you that help you lay your head and take a nap, you get peaceful images like the sheep jumping over the fence or cow over the moon, planted into your mind, giving you a soft image that is easy to doze off to. Sometimes the reading itself is a exciting journey, you get really into it and you just want to finish the book to have the mystery solved, that itself is a tiring experience and it helps you go to bed, wondering what the else could of happened and thinking about searching for the sequel or similar book to give you the same experience. I read at night to fall asleep, because of books calming nature.