Wednesday, February 29, 2012

More Bits Of An Autobiography I May Not Write Review

Today our group did a review on a story called "More Bits Of An Autobiography I May Not Write". It is basically about a father in a not-so-ordinary household who talks about his various memories of his life. In the story, we find out that whatever he does is really weird and idiotic, like when he fed his goldfish cat food or when he accidentally bought an airplane.

The characters in the story are pretty unique: the father's personality is like a child's, while his children's personalities are like adults'. The way the author wrote is really interesting as well. He kept jumping from one memory (story) to another, as if the father's mind is all jumbled up. Also, these weird but fascinating stories include a lot of laughter and humor in them - the author has succeeded in writing a comedy genre book.

From today's group discussion, we decided that the most intriguing element of this story was: why does the father behave this way? Maybe he has some kind of disease? Maybe this is just his characteristic? But whatever the reason, this craziness makes the story interesting, so our group was interested in knowing the answer.

If you love comedy or simply want to have a laugh, this story is for you! The father's daily encounters are not your ordinary ones - whatever he does turns the whole thing upside down! Hilarious content, read this and it'll brighten up your day!

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The Walk of Death Review

Today my group did a review on a small part of a story called "The Walk of Death". The story is about this boy called Kevin who wants to join a gang, and the leaders of the gang, Doc and Salom, test him to see if he can qualify. They bring him to the top floor of an abandoned mansion and a bottomless chasm awaited them. They urged Kevin to cross it using only a narrow wooden beam, then they would accept him as a fully-paid up member of the gang. Just when he was choosing whether to cross or not, the part ended.

The characters in the story were very realistic, and there are people like them in the outside world. For example, Kevin, while he was going up the abandoned mansion blindfolded, he was imagining creepy things following him, the stairs crumbling in front of him, etc. The way the author describes the setting sends a chill down our spines, and obviously he has succeeded in writing a suspense story. The events which happened in the story are actually quite common in real life; a lot of people want to join gangs to get attention and become popular - as a result, they are forced to do ridiculous things and end up getting badly injured or even die!

From today's group discussion, we concluded that the last phrase that the leader of the gang, Salom, said was a really important element of the story: "welcome, to the Walk Of Death." That was the cliffhanger which makes the readers want to read the rest of the novel.

I would recommend this story to people who love thrills and excitement, because this story has a fantastic cliffhanger and makes people want to read the rest of the story; also, the plot is about the characters going to a dark, abandoned mansion and getting into a life or death situation, therefore suited for those kinds of people.