Angela's Ashes 1-6-12

This week I read Angela's Ashes. Even though I have only read about 60 pages I can still tell that it will be a sad book that includes many difficulties of living in poverty. The book started out with Frankie and his family of four living in Brooklyn, NY in the 1930's. He is about 4 years old and has a brother who's 2. His father was born in the northern part of Ireland and is an alcoholic that gets drunk almost every night and doesnt have a job. His mother, Angela is a beautiful young woman also from Ireland who came here and got pregnant with Frankie and was forced to marry his father, Malachy. From the start, Malachy had an "odd manner" (according to Angela's cousins) and was a mean young man, that couldn't have turned into anything good. And Angela's cousins were right, because by the time his second son was born he had turned into a complete drunk. Not long after Malachy was born (their second son) Angela gave birth to 2 twin boys, Eugene and Oliver. The father now had to support 5 other people. Realizing he needs to shape up, Frankies father gets a job, and for about a month, every week on Friday he comes home with wages and Angela is able to finally pay the Italian grocer, and feed her kids. But on the 4th week, he doesnt come home at all. He is out drinking and once again he is back to his old habits.
        For the nest couple weeks Malachy continues to get drunk almost every night and sings Kevin Barry all night. Soon, Angela gives birth to a beautiful baby girl, Margaret and Malachy cannot let go of her. He gets a job again and for about 7 weeks he is sober and instead of singing Kevin Barry every night he sings the Leprechaun Song to Margaret. For those 7 weeks the family is happy again but at the end of the month Margaret passes. Both parents are shocked, their baby girl was the best thing that ever happened to them, and a couple weeks later Angela's cousins come visit again. They see the trouble they are in, and suggest that Angela and her family go back to Ireland. So Angela, Malachy and the 4 boys get on a boat to Ireland and go visit Malachy's parents. However, the poverty in Ireland is just as bad as America and they are forced to go find a place of their own, only to realize that they have no money and are stranded in Ireland.
     Angelas Ashes has been very good so far, and I am excited to see what happens next in the memoir.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

This week i read The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie. It was pretty rough book, showing the difficulties of Juniors life. For example, how his older sister runs off to Montana and then dies from a fire started in her camper, and how poor his school is and how he is bullied because of his stutter and lisp that he has because of a birth defect. Arnold goes through a lot of scarring, painful things, and the author does not sugar-coat any of it.
       The book was based on Shermans Alexie's life, and most of the things that occur in the book do really happen. His sister does really die, and he does have a stutter and lisp. All and all, I think that it was amazin that the author shared his stry with us. I'm sure it was difficult growing uo where he did and it was hard to out it down on paper.

persopolis 2

For the past week, I have read the sequel of persopolis. This book is the same thing as the last, but focusing more on the adult part of her life. Instead of showing the difficluties of grwoing up, it shows more of the experiences she has had as and adult. For example, moving to Austria and having different types of roomates, having different boyfriends. As she moves from place to place, it also shows how she grows apart from her family more.
         She realizes the downside of having a life of her own, and wishes she were around more at certain times like when her grandmother passes. She has different nightmares about her grnadma scolding