Pages read .

I have read 180 pages in the last two weeks. I finished up reading A Child Called It and began reading Identical :)

Identical 1-60

I started a new book called Identical by Ellen Hopkins. So far in the book I learn about the two twins and how different they are. There mother is running for congress and is always on the road. She avoids coming home to her family as much as possible so it's just the two girls, Kaeliegh and Raeanne, and there Dad at home. There father is a lawyer and likes to drink when he gets home. There's something going on between the Dad and Kaeliegh. He has a special liking for her but sounds like it has almost come to a point where it has been sexual abuse but I'm not quite sure yet. Raeanne is more of a rebel out of the two and gets into more than what she should when it comes to boys and how to keep herself entertained. She strives for attention from her father, but doesn't get half of the attention Kaeliegh gets from him. There family started to fall apart when the girls were in the 4th grade and there was a bad car accident. There father was driving and I know there mother has many surgerys to cover up the scars. I'm excited to keep on reading.

Alice in Happy High

Alice in Happy High blog really caught my eye. You can tell this person puts a lot of time and effort into the blog. They recently put a blog about the movie Water for Elephants. After reading that blog entry I really would like to see that movie. This person always has a good Tuesday response and keeps up with the blog well.

Fine Arts Show

Jake Furnace's art work really caught my eye when looking at the art work. His art work is amazing and i've seen him work on it before and he makes it look simple to do. My favorite piece of his is the picture he drew of him and his friends at IHOP. It looks exactly like each of them and is full of excitement. I think he's a very talented and guy could do very well in the art industry.

pages 79-153 (end)

Dave's mother gets real upset and as usual takes it out on him and starts to beat him. She was drunk while yelling at him and had a knife in her hand threating to kill him if he didn't finish his chores in time. She was swaying back and forth and "accidently" fell and stabbed Dave in his lower chest. She cleaned him up and for a second Dave thought that she actually felt bad until she told him to get back to work. He was losing a lot of blood and couldn't finish the dishes so his father helped him. It wasn't long before his mother forbidded his father from talking to him. The whole family stopped acknowledging David. He realized that his wound was infected but refused to ask his mother for help even though he was throbbing in pain. He stayed in the basement sitting on his hands until his mother called for him to do more chores day by day. Dave's father then started spending less and less time at home. His mother of course got meaner by the day to him and he started to worry about his life. It wasn't long before he began to think that he'd be better off dead. Kids at school constantly told him to kill himself and that he wasn't worth anything. His fear towards his mother soon turned to anger and for a day he tried to rebel. He soon regretted it when his mother gave him even worse punishment. One of the cruelest that she came up with was she'd make Dave eat ammonia, burning his throat and tongue and was his least favorite punishment. She'd fill the bathtub with freezing water and almost drown Dave in the water and make him sit in there for hours on end freezing. He was obviously not allowed to eat or even look at his family. His father finally had enough and gave up on his family and packed his bags to leave. Dave, his mother, and his brothers dropped off the rest of his father's belongings at the motel he was staying at. Dave was devistated and as they pulled out his mother said " You're all mine now. Too bad your father's not here to protect you." David said a prayer the rest of the way home and the book ended. I thought this was an awful book and a horrible ending. I was expecting something much different and a lot happier. It leaves me with a bad image and I've been thinking about it for days. It's a gruesome true story but with an ending like that it makes me want to read the sequal to the book to hopefully get a happy ending.

pages 33-79

David began to see a drastic change in his mother. She stopped dressing up and putting make up on and just taking care of herself in general. Her displine with her kids, mainly Dave, got out of hand. She started hard core drinking and would just watch tv and shout orders. David's father began spending less and less time at home and making any excuse possible to get out of the "mad house." Dave's mother would beat him worse when his father was gone so he thought of his Dad as his only protector. His parents would drink together all night and when they fought, his mother would take it out on him. She began by beating him and making him stay in the cold basement for hours on end. When she thought that this routine was no longer working she stopped feeding Dave. She constantly told him that he was a "bad boy" and that he wasn't worth anything. She'd go days at a time excluding Dave from family meals until he'd barely starve. His only hope to get food was at school. When he was good and did all of mothers chores in the right amount of time he would get his brother's scraps left from the cereal from breakfast. Dave's mother's way of humiliating him was making him wear the same shirt and pants every day at school and kids were always making fun of the way he looked and smelled. His shirt looked like "swiss cheese" with all of the holes in it. Dave began to steal food from school any possible way he could so he'd run super quickly too school to steal some of his classmates packed lunches before class began. When he finally got caught the school called his mother and he paid for it when he returned home that night. He then came up with a new strategy that if he wanted to live he was going to have to try again. So he began stealing from the market up the street from his school during recess time and of course then got caught not long after. His mother would force his finger down his throat when he'd return home from school to see if he managed to steal any food that day. The day he stole a packaged lunch of frozen hot dogs from the school his mother made him throw it up and eat it. As his father sat and watched, and didn't do a thing about it Dave began to lose hope in his father. His father always promised him that he'd soon get Dave and himself out of the house but the drunker they got the more they fought. And the fought was usually based on Dave. Dave's last chance for life was to out smart his mother. Part of his daily chores as being the "family slave" he had to clear the dinner table and get rid of the trash. He began going through the trash and eating whatever scraps he could find. When his mother finally caught onto him she starved him even more after a beating. It's really hard for me to continue reading this book knowing that it's true and that these kind of disgusting things actually happen to kids. I feel bad for Dave and my antipication for him to be more brave or have a change in his life kills me as I read on. No one on earth, bad boy or not, should be treated the way Dave's mother treats him. His father being no better in my opinion for allowing the abuse to happen to his child.

Action List : tuesday response

I thought Alysia Cazares relates to me the most because i'm also interested in psychology. She also has had a similar childhood and experiences and wants to be able to help people. She feels as if she's more mature because she's been through it. I thought Jana Tran was the most interesting. She wants to become a photographer which I also think is cool. She's not worried about being wealthy, she just wants to take pictures. I thought that Shauna Casale was probably the most deluded of them all dreaming to become an actress. Acting's a hard business to get into and it's not very realisitic. In ten years, I hope to be married and be finished with college. I'm not quite sure what I want to do yet but I'd like to have a stable job and maybe even a kid or two. I'm thinking about psychology. I want to live some where warm and just be happy with my family.