Divergent

In the book Divergent by Veronica Roth, a sixteen year old girl named Beatrice faces a decision that will change her life forever. She has the choice of staying with her family and being selfless, becoming brave, becoming smart, becoming kind, or becoming honest. In this story, there are five factions, and six ways of life. Each faction is one way of life and follow their rules. The other is to be factionless and live in poverty. At age sixteen, each teenager must choose one. Beatrice chooses Dauntless, the brave faction. This choice shapes her entire future.

In the story, Beatrice decided to leave her family and try something that she had never done before. This one choice is the most important in the entire book. I think that the way to choose your life is really unfair because she was surrounded by everyone in the factions.m This made her feel uneasy and nervous. But, even though her family was right in front of her when she made her decision, she still chose what she thought was right. This part of the story shows that you should never be pressured into doing something from other people and that you should always make your own decisions.

This stories theme is that people should always make their own decisions. The way that Beatrice made her decisions may inspire the reader to try and follow her footsteps in making their own choices. Beatrice handled the decision with courage and didn't let anyone convince her. If everyone in the real world could handle their decisions the way she did than peer pressure wouldn't bother anyone. Everyone would make their own choices and no innocent people would get into trouble.

You Killed Wesley Pane

In the novel You Killed Wesley Payne by Sean Beaudoin, a teenager named Dalton Rev who is in in junior high school solves cases/mysteries for money. He refers to himself as a "Private Dick" and everyone else does as well. He gets the money for two reasons: to support his family and to get armor to send to his older brother in the army. He is very determined and uses the personality of a courageous detective from a series of books he'd read. They are from the author Lexington Cole. In You Killed Wesley Payne, Dalton presents the themes of self-determination and being yourself.

The way that Dalton shows the theme of self-determination is that he never gives up trying to get the body armor for his brother. The body armor is extremely expensive. Although the book doesn't tell you what the price was it can be inferred because Dalton gets thousands of dollars but still needs more. In the book, Dalton solved several cases, all of which were very dangerous and life-threatening. No matter what, though, he keeps working towards his goal.

Another theme that Dalton presented was to be yourself. Throughout the entire story, Dalton was inspired by the Lexington Cole stories that he read and wanted to be just like the main character. So, he became him by acting like him. But, he didn't let his true feelings out until the end, when he realized that writing was skill.

This novel tells people to never stop working towards their goals until they have been achieved. It also tells people to find who they are and to be themselves. Personally, I like this story and recommend it to anyone that likes to read a story about a teenage detective.

The Testament

"The Testament" by John Grisham is about a old man named Troy Phelan who has made many mistakes and 1 success in his life. His mistakes were his marriages, which all ended in a divorce. But his success was owning the largest company in the world and having over 11 billion dollars. Troy was getting old and didn't know what to do with his money. Also, he was tired of life. So seconds before he jumps to his death, he signs a will giving all of his money to the only successful child he has. Her name is Rachel Lane. No one knew he had this daughter so the rest of the family fight for what they think is rightfully theirs: the money.

In the real world, no one is perfect. But they still have to try. In this book, Grisham introduces a family that is far in debt, spoiled, not so smart, know-it-all, and most of all, greedy. In the real world, there are people like this. But, if they try hard and do good deeds, they can redeem themselves. Personally, I don;t think there are lots of people like this. Most people are only like this a few times in their life. But they can try not to be.

The moral of this story is to not be greedy. Because if you are, you will get nothing. Good only comes to good people but bad goes to all. Unfortunately, this is the way it works. I wish that there was a way to change it. So try to be good, and when bad comes to you, don't change. Be good.

The Unnameables

In the book The Unnameables by Ellen Booraem, Medford Runyuin is on an island. On the island there is a very strict society. Medford wasn't born on the island. The main rule on the island is that everything must have a purpose. If it has a purpose it has a name. If it doesn't have a purposemit does not have a name. Everyone is named after what they do. For example, if you were a weaver then your name would be Weaver. If you made something that didn't have a use, then you would be banished and brought to the mainland. The problem is that Medford doesn't want to follow the rules and be like everyone else. He let his mind go wild and carve whatever he wanted. One day a goatman appeared in front of his house one day. He could call the wind but couldn't control it. The peopel found out that Medford had created these useless objects and had a trial to banish Medford. The way the conflict was resolved was that almost everyone on the island had something useless or unnameable. The council decided to allow these useless objects on the island. They decided to name them runyuins.

One theme to this book is that it's okay to be different. I think that the theme was showed when Meedford didn't have a meaningful last name like everyone else. Another theme was let your imagination flow. Medford let his imagination flow into carving. He carved things like seagulls, fancy bowls, and anything he had on his mind. The last theme that I saw was to ignore what others think about you. In the beginning of the story, kids made fun of him and called him names for being different. Medford didn't let this stop him.

The way that this book connected to the real world is that the island was just an island off the coast of the any place in the real world. The island was just an example of what the people thought was a "perfect society." Some of the problems are the same as problems people have today.