You Can't Learn How To Love

            I am currently reading the book Lovetorn by Kavita Daswani. Shalini, the main character, is from India and just recently moved to L.A. Like most Indian children, Shalini has an arranged marriage, and has been forced into "love". She has been engaged since she was three-years-old with a boy named Vikram that's about four years older than her. They have gone out on dates, e-mailed each other, talked on the phone like a regular couple and think they feel love for each other. Shalini doesn't figure out that she has been living a false relationship until she meets Toby. 
             Shalini has an arranged marriage, and has been forced into "love". I put love in between quotation marks because the kind of love she thinks she has found is one that she has been taught to feel since she was three-years-old. It's not the true feeling of love that you feel when you first see that someone. The butterflies in your stomach. The feeling of your lungs suffocating for air. And your heart beating so loud, it's about to break through your skin. All of this is the true feeling and meaning of love. And I might be wrong because all of my information is based off of my parent's relationship, television shows, movies, etc. I might not be a hundred percent sure but I'm confident that I'm close.
             I think that arranged marriage is a crime and it should be illegal. The family of the two "lovers" should go to jail and the "lovers" too, for pretending to feel something they don't to please their families and fulfill their traditions. Love isn't a feeling that you learn to do, it's a feeling that comes naturally from the soul. I predict that Shalini goes through these feelings and questions in the book. She's going to ask herself the purpose of these marriages, the meaning of love, and something about herself along the way. I also predict she's probably going to put her parents through a nightmare when they find out about . From the minute that I read the blurb on this book I knew that I needed to read it. The fact that it was about how an Indian girl with an arranged marriage finds true love told me to check it out. I still haven't finished the book but I have a feeling that it will be great.
                           

The All Star Mentor

          My nomination of the all-star mentor should be Elsie. In this blog post she has everything well thought out and written. Also her paragraphs show how much thought she put into this. Her first paragraph was her retelling, but it wasn't the kind of retell that made you want to fall asleep, it was the kind that made you want to go a library and check-out the book.She also did a good job of elaborating on her paragraphs. Another reason she deserves this award is because not only does she put effort in her posts but she also made her background very amusing and she has these slide shows about things she loves. My point is that her blog is eye-catching and jaw-dropping. All in all, I nominate Elsie for the All Star Mentor award.
--> http://kewlkidinbrooklyn.blogspot.com/2011/11/truth-about-dreams.html 

BOYS, BOYS, BOYS

     The book The Summer of Firsts and Lasts is all about boys, boys, boys! The story is narrated by three sisters, Calla, Violet, and Daisy. They all have boy problems in different ways. Unfortunately at the end it doesn't work out for either one of them.
     Calla is the oldest and it is her last year at camp before she goes off to college. She is also a people pleaser. She has to have everybody on her side or as a friend. She likes this boy, Duncan, whom she has been friends with since she her first year at this camp. Violet is the second oldest she is the complete opposite of Calla. She's a senior and boys are the least of her problems. She's one of those people that can get over a boy easily and ask one out herself. During the summer she meets James, a counselor at camp. She has never taken any boy seriously except for him. unfortunately the relationship doesn't last long. Daisy is the youngest of the three and she's a freshman. This is her first year at camp and she's kind of nervous. She doesn't have any friends here, that is until she meets Joel, a freshman. On the first night at dinner they hit it off and their next big encounter is the swing dance.  Things go nice at first but then Joel isn't the nice guy he was anymore.
     I think that this book portraits a really good example of girls these days. The development of girls is really different then what it was a century ago. Girls aren't being taught manners or having the talk with their parents.The rate of teenage pregnancy, drug addicts, and alcoholics has gone up a lot over the century. Anyways, also the perspective of how girls have to look like is part of this whole dilemma.  All in all, I would consider myself to be half Violet and half Calla. I'm like Calla because I let boys come to me, i don't go after them like they're some sort of chew toy and I'm a dog. And I'm like Violet because I'm also not so shy to talk to boys.