Chapter 1-17 Summary

CHAPTER 1: Main characters have a race, Maria hurts her leg. Barbara forced to complete a forfeit, Michele does it instead. Michele completes forfeit. Most of the main characters are talked about. Papa brings them a present of a model Gondola; Acqua Traverse is revealed.

There were a few points in this book that taught me about life and how crazy it can be sometimes. The photographer named Fulgencio was very afraid of hitch hiking to Mexico City with a stranger, especially with all of us expensive equipment. On the ride, Fulgencio is so paranoid that the guy is going to kill him, he grabs a machete out of the back of the truck. In doing so he gets kicked out of the car and loses all of his photography equipment anyways. This taught me that we need to trust each other more, Just because there are a few crazy people in the world, we shouldn't let them give us all a bad name. I mean, the guy picked Fulgencio up when he was in desperate need of a car, and gives him a ride. He should have been thankful, not picked up a machete and threaten the guy. Another thing this book taught me was that just because your sister doesn't want your kid anymore because she

The simplistic plot of the novel and the overall theme of love allows the author to span the lives of the main characters. The reader sees the span of the life of two of the main characters, Sidda and her mother Vivi, as

At night, John Grady rides the patron's prized sire through the mountains beyond the hacienda in the company of Alejandra, the patron's beautiful daughter. But in a land as bound by honor and reputation as this is, the white-hot love between John Grady and this girl is as dangerous as anything they will face. When soldiers arrive to take John Grady and Rawlins away, the boys know it has nothing to do with Jimmy Blevins, but is instead because of some deeper, more elusive transgression that John Grady has committed in the name of love. With no one to plead their case, their fate is dire indeed. John Grady and Rawlins find themselves in a Mexican prison governed by stark violence. But in the hands of Cormac McCarthy this place takes on a dreamlike quality; it is not right or wrong, good or evil, but merely as inevitable a part of life as the sun setting in the West, something that must be faced in order for one to survive. All the Pretty Horses is the first volume in the Border Trilogy (the second volume is entitled The Crossing; and the third, The Cities of

The novel Across a Hundred Mountains by Reyna Grande is a story about two young girls and their struggling journey to find happiness between two conflicting and distinct worlds: the United States and Mexico. Juana on one side wants to get to the United States, or “el otro lado” as mentioned in the novel, to find her father who abandoned her and her mother after leaving to find work in the US. On the other hand Adelina escapes from her house in California to follow her lover to Mexico. The girls form a bond in the most unexpected of places, a Tijuana jail, and quickly form a friendship that will connect them for the rest of their lives.

Some things in life do not happen in the way people expect for them to. In The Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea, the group’s quest to find seven men to take home was successful, but Nayeli’s goal was not successful the way she planned for it to be. She had intended to find and bring her father back, and that goal of bringing him back was not accomplished in the end, but she did find her father, which was the successful aspect of the goal.

After Nalia finds out that her name is actually Sinda and that she is not in fact the real princess, she must go live with her only living relative. At this point in the story, the possibility of the protagonist going on a quest becomes unknown to the readers. Once she goes to live with her aunt in Treb, she meet a young man, Tyr, and befriends him. When she meets him she describes how handsome he is and she becomes more quiet when talking to him, which means that she is most likely attracted to him. One day while they are spending time together and she says, “And in one effortless motion, he leaned forward and kissed me….How, for just an instant, Kiernan’s face had swum before my closed eyes” (57-58). While she is kissing Tyr, she starts to think about Kiernan, her best friend, instead of thinking about the person that she is kissing. This particular moment can indicate to readers that the story could actually be a marriage plot instead of a quest plot. There is a possibility that the story will be about a love triangle and Sinda finding her one true love. After she finds out that Tyr was only using her, she realizes something about herself. While she is secretly listening to his conversation she notices that “The piece of vine that I was holding on to crumbled into black dust in my hand” (68). When she finds out that she is a witch, she goes back into the city to get magic

Mr. Pirzada comes to ten year old Lilia’s house to dine each night with her parents and to watch the news of the war between India and Pakistan. He left behind his wife and seven daughters in Pakistan to study in New England. Although Mr. Pirzada writes letters to his family each week, he had not heard from them in six months. When Mr. Pirzada arrives to Lilia house, she takes his coat and is rewarded with a candy. In the end, Mr. Pirzada flies back home and months later he sends a letter to Lilia’s family, thanking them for their hospitality and telling them that he was finally reunited with his family; who were safe. Therefore, Lilia is not forced to know about the events happening around the world, and went she tried to learn about Pakistan at school she was punished by her teacher.

Laila and Mariam share the household tasks and the care for Aziza. Aziza also grows specifically fond of Mariam, greeting her ecstatically every morning. One day, as Laila braids Mariam’s hair, Mariam tells Laila about the events leading up to her marriage to Rasheed. Laila then tells her own story of her relationship with Tariq (Her lover) and the plans she had thought of to flee from Rasheed and back to Tariq. She asks Mariam to join her on her runaway, but Mariam is terrified, as she has never disobeyed anyone due to the fact she’s been controlled by numerous people throughout her life. But still thrilled by the idea of escape, and surprised at herself for thinking about her future in a positive light for the first time. I particularly like this chapter because, it shows the strong spark of friendship between Mariam and Laila has been lit. Both women strip away any of their remaining secrets and Mariam shares her troubled history while Laila confesses not only Aziza’s true father, but also her plan to escape. To me this shows the power of female friendship through the growth of Mariam and Laila's affection for one another. Laila and Mariam are able to come to a new understanding through this moment of intimacy; the women unite fully against Rasheed and begin

Into the Beautiful north is an awesome novel that relates they story of Nayeli, a nineteen years old girl and her three friends that decided to migrate to the United States to hire seven men to defend their little town from some drug traffickers that arrived to their village. But going north was not an easy journey for Nayeli and her friends. They have so many trouble on their way to Tijuana. In this research paper there is a review of the scenes in the Tijuana garbage dump in chapter 12, where immigrants’ belongings were stolen and they have to face several dangerous situations.

In this chapter, Hosseini introduces a theme of the individual versus society and really builds on Mariam's mood. With the passing away of her mother and now "hearing Jalil with Nana's ears", Mariam wants absolutely nothing to do with her father. When Jalil and his wives ask to speak to her she knew something big was going to happen. Hosseini first describes each of the wives as their own person as the way Mariam viewed them. As the situation progresses regarding Mariam getting married off, she sees they do not want her a part of their family and that they're all working together to get rid of her. Mariam now view the three as one whole by "no longer4 keeping tracking of who was saying what". The wives lose their individuality and the book

Nonetheless, the real adventure for Ciarán and comrades begins when they meet Ani Ohanyan, she is young, beautiful, tough, naively idealistic and a mammy smuggler. Ani needs help getting a shipment of mammy to an area that needs it and Ciarán and friends decide to help her. With Ani and mammy in tow, Ciarán and associates embark on the journey of a lifetime finding perilous adventure, truth, love and themselves, in the midst of their dangerous but revelatory

The novel is separated in twelve parts and each part is named after months of the year. Each section begins with a Mexican recipe that the central character apparently wants people to learn in order to employ similar attitudes to her in situations where they feel pressured. Tita is stressed by her relatives because she is expected to act in agreement with the family legacy by taking care of her mother until her death. However, her adventurous nature makes it difficult for her to do so and until she is actually separated by her mother she turns to cooking as a means to channel her pains. She is eventually united with Pedro, the person she is in love with, but they both die and emphasize the fact that it is impossible for Tita to be happy.

In the story the narrator known as Mama is a hardworking and heavier set woman who has been doing physical labor for years now. We learn that she is a single mother, has two daughters, along with being poor and educated she wasn’t able to really make anything out of herself. One of her daughters, Maggie, lives with Mama and as a child she was burned in a house fire so she has scars along her body from that incident. The other daughter to Mama is Dee, she is the oldest daughter of Mama’s and she changed her name to Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo. Dee is the educated one in the family and we later find out is very ambitious. The last character we meet is Hakim-a-barber who is Dee’s husband. Some themes we see throughout the story would be the importance

Oz, Glinda, the China Girl, Vella, and Shay sat at a table, enjoying the quiet morning as they ate breakfast. After the war, the land had fallen into a state of peace and everyone finally had a sense of freedom. The world itself seemed to brighten a little. The five of them just talked about everything and nothing, although their topic of conversation never strayed to the war or Shay and Vella’s families. No one wanted to ruin the sense of calm.