Waves by: Sharon Dogar

The book Waves is almost like a mystery book and it's very confusing at first. The book jumps back and forth, but it keeps you guessing what's going to happen next and it helps you stay interested in the book. In Waves, happened a really sad thing to the Ditton family. For them it's hard to move on with life afterwards and the book jumps back and forth with what happened to how the family is dealing now. This book was so interesting to me because there's two main characters, both are alive but one is at a mental state no that can't respond to anybody but they can hear and understand the people around them. The other one tells the story of what happened and how life is now. It was neat to read a book like this because most books don't have two sides to one story. So you get both perspectives of the same event.

What was unique about the setting of the book and how did it enhance or take away from the story?
The fact that the book had two main characters and there were two different perspectives. Also, the book had many flashbacks in it. All this made the book hard to understand at first but once you got it, it was a really ineresting book.

Circle the Soul Softly: Davida Wills Hurwin

This book is a about a girl named Katie, who is in high school and is starting a new school soon because of her mom's new marriage. Katie, is just like any other normal teenage person because when she starts at this new school, she is really hoping that everyone will like her and think that she is cool and not clumsy and uncool like she really is. To help her meet new friends, she auditions for a school play and does great, she gets the part she wanted but she also gets the part that one of the popular girls wanted. She does meet David, who becomes her boyfriend. One day at play practice, she finds the diary of the mean girl at school Stacie. She finds out a lot of things about her like why she drinks, takes pills, has tried some drugs and why she is always so rude. Her and David decide to turn Stacie's diary into the school conseulor and when Stacie finds out, that causes them to hate eachother even more. All throughout the book, there are so many different things that teenagers today can relate to. I would recommend this book becasuse of that reason. Katie talks about all the problems that Stacie has like her famil life issues and issues within herself that she tries to hide by drinking and partying all the time. Katie talks about her almost perfect relationship with her boyfriend, her relationship with her familly and how starting at a new high school is going for her. There are so many differerent things that happen in this book, that I think that almost any teenager could relate somehow. Also, at first, the title of the book doesn't make any sense, so it made you to want to keep reading that book to figure out why that's the title.

In what ways do the events in the book reveal evidence of the author's world view?
In the book, the author is clearly aware of what goes on in teenager's every day lives. She sees that kids turn to drugs, drinking and being with lots of different people to feel accepted in school because deep down inside they know that they have a lot of difficult issues that they don't want people to know about and/or can't handle themselves. In the book, the author writes how one of the characters goes to a fortune teller to tell all thier problems to and to try to get help and to figure out why they do the things they do.

How do characters change or evolve throughout the course of the story? What events trigger such changes?
Stacie is probably the character that changes the most in this book. At first her and Katie hate each other and their personalities are completely different. Then when Katie and David find Stacie's diary and they give it to the school counselor, she makes Stacie get help for her problems. Throughout the book, you see the changes in Stacie and what causes her to change as she opens up to why she does all the bad things she does.