Gayle Forman's If I Stay And I Was Here

The Vietnam War was an event with lasting effects. The U.S. troops participated from 1961 until 1975 where over 58,000 Americans were killed according to the U.S Department of Veteran Affairs. This war created a divide amongst the American people with so many opposed to the war because they claim that the cost of war and casualties was too high. Many believed, in addition, that the U.S. should not have involved themselves because the war did not directly affect America. For these reasons and many more, it caused a lot of traumas; not only for veterans but even regular citizens. Due to this, when U.S. involvement with the Iraq War started in 2003 (Riedel), many began drawing parallels between it and the Vietnam War and Anna Quindlen was among them.Anna Quindlen, an opinion columnist with a Pulitzer prize for commentary, wrote an article titled “We’ve Been Here Before.” Her overall goal, in this article, is to convince the reader that the Vietnam and Iraq War are alike as well as catastrophic. Her argument that the two wars are alike is erroneous in nature since there are many significant differences to be listed. Quindlen lacks reputable evidence because she lets her emotions write the article so she spews out personal attacks; there is a clear tone of anger. She accuses the president of wanting the Iraq War to only be about policy without backing this stance and she uses her friend’s statements to support her argument though he isn’t an expert on the matter. Quindlen makes a few good points in the article

Michael Gow’s play Away is the story of three different Australian families who go on holiday for Christmas in the sixties. By going away each family is hoping to resolve their issues. Although Away is set some time ago the themes and issues explored in the play are still relevant to a modern day audience, even one of a non-Australian background. Shakespearean plays that were written many hundreds of years ago and are still understandable and relevant to people all over the world today.

Not everyone is a criminal just because they have a criminal past. People can change through time and experience. Individuals are capable to recognize this through pieces of writing which shows the characters from the beginning through the end. In We Were Here written by Matt de La Pena in 2009, there were three main characters which are Miguel, Mong, and Rondell. Miguel committed a horrible crime and got sent to a group home for a year and was obligated to write in his journal, so the judge can understand his way of his thinking. Miguel meets Rondell and Mong at the group home. Then Mong decides to come up with a plan to escape the group home, run off to Mexico to be free with Miguel and Rondell. The three boys did not know each other that well, they were basically strangers who eventually became best friends threw their journey of escaping to Mexico. In We Were Here shows a major theme which a theme is the moral of the story. Within that journey ,Matt de La Pena, the author of We Were Here shows symbolism which created the theme even though you might have a bad past everyone has the chance to change.

If I stay, which is an outstanding novel written by Gayle Forman, was published in 2009 and is an emotionally gripping story. The most interesting part of the novel starts with Mia’s life after the accident. The readers also learn about her life before the tragedy with the help of plentiful flashbacks. She recalls her colorful and vibrant family members so vividly that they could easily step off the page and break the hearts of the readers. Furthermore, her remembrances also highlight her passion for music and romance with her boyfriend. Moreover, the readers will find the entire novel very interesting and inspiring and will also find the climax of the novel very satisfying. The story revolves around seventeen year old Mia, who finds herself dealing with the aftermath of a terrible car accident which killed her entire family. During the coma, Mia goes through an out-of-the-body experience and observes all her friends and family that gather at the hospital. The memory of Mia flashes before her and she debates about whether or not she should wake up and face the grief of losing her family or, if she should die. Before summarizing the story, it is pertinent that the main characters of the story should be discussed briefly.

'Keeper N Me ' by Richard Wagamese, is a novel based on the necessary balance between life and the culture in which one belongs to. This is a necessary aspect in order to maintain a steady relationship with one 's self. In this novel passing on traditions or a certain way of life from generation to generation is one of the most important aspects of guiding someone of the Ojibway culture, as the Ojibway people have very strong beliefs and take their culture very seriously. The people of the Ojibway culture believe that through storytelling and dreams one can realize the importance of tradition and its influence on their identity. Wagamese throughout his novel tries to teach the readers the power of one 's community and traditions as he

I chose the famous and well known song, “I Will Survive,” because it tells me that I will survive the 7th grade and school there after! This song was sung in 1978 by Gloria Gaynor, an African American women. This catchy song was a huge hit during the disco era and has a medium to up beat tempo. “I will survive,” best represents me because I will survive homework, sports, and school work, although at this time in life it does not feel like it! My favorite part of the song is when it says that “Oh, no, not I, I will survive,” because it shows that I will never give up and keep trying new things and that I will pull through. School is like a battlefield, having your ups and your downs. This song is also about friendship, love , broken hearts,

Jamie Fader’s book Falling Back which was published in 2013, is based on ethnographic research over three years, from 2004 to 2007, of black and latino males on the edge of adulthood and that were incarcerated at the Mountain Ridge Academy reform school located in a rural area: “within a dense forest in western Pennsylvania, is Mountian Ridge Academy … ninety-acre campus contains eight dormitories, each of which houses thirty-two young men between ages 14 to 18” (p.1). The criminal thinking approach was intended to help young people identify the patterns that had led them to delinquency and replace it with corrective and prosocial thoughts. These young boys had been involved in drug offenses and violence within their suburban communities and were now in the process of behavioral change in order to help them reflect and be able to make better decisions which would lead them to a better life.

Literature can be a powerful tool for social change. Red Rooms by Cherie Dimaline is about the weaving of indigenous stories through the common element that they were patrons of an urban hotel. The narrator, Naomi, works as a housekeeper at the hotel and imagines the past, present and future existence of the patrons by what they left behind. Dimaline shows how indigenous histories and knowledge operate, in that they are not linear, and they do not have a definite beginning or an end. The novel subtly shows the need for an Indigenous resurgence, but the book itself is an act of resurgence because it shows the importance of indigenous literature. This paper will argue that Red Rooms itself acts as an act of indigenous resurgence

Michael Gow's play, "Away" expresses the idea of going through changes and receiving help from people around you. The key characters of the play experiences change and renewal as a result of their relationships with others ad the summer vacation. Coral and Gwen is two characters that undergo the most changes throughout the trip. Coral manage to moved on from her's son death while Gwen changed from a snobby person to a person who is more understandable. Tom is one of the critical character that help Coral and Gwen realised their issues and surpasses it. The play showed lives of people and their own struggle during the 60s and how they overcome it.

Girl Interrupted is Susanna Kaysen 's memoir a series of recollections and reflections of her nearly two year stay at a residential psychiatric program at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. She looks back on it with a sense of surprise. In her memoir she considers how she ended up at McLean, and whether or not she truly belonged there. Each chapter focuses on one aspect of her experience. Founded in the late 19th century, McLean Hospital had been a facility for troubled members of wealthy and aristocratic families. By the late 1960s, however, McLean had fallen into a period neglect. This was a time of great change in the mental health care field. Kaysen grew up in a wealthy and prestigious family. Like most teenagers, she was rebellious at times, confused and unsure about her future. She didn’t want to go to college and slept with her high school English teacher. She witnessed firsthand the widening generation gap that was developing in the late 1960s. Older generations looked at Kaysen’s generation 's world with alarm.

Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein once said, “The real question of life after death isn 't whether or not it exists, but even if it does what problem this really solves.” The idea that death is inevitable is well known by everyone, yet no one is certain as to what happens afterwards. Even though the subject of life after death has been argued for centuries by many philosophers and theologians. In the article Sign Here If You Exist, Jill Sisson Quinn adequately employs figurative language, rhetoric questionings, and personal anecdotes to demonstrate a controversial argument on the topic of life after death.

Rebecca Stead is fame as an American writer of fiction for children and teens. The achievement of her novels is not doubtful. She was born on January 16, 1968 and raised in New York City. Vassar College was the institution where she acquired her bachelor’s degree in 1989. Moreover, she has started to write since she was a child but she altered her career to become a lawyer. However, Stead started to become of writing subsequent to the birth of her two children. Her inspiration of writing children’s novel was from her son and her collections of story stories on her laptop. One day, her 4-year-old son by chance pushed her laptop out off the dining-room table and destroyed her piece of writing. Stead was very angry with her son and she went to the bookstore to find books which can inspire her to write. From that moment, her motivation and loving in writing began to boost up, and her debut novel was First Light which won The New York Best Times. Due to her great spirit in writing, she won The American Newbery Medal in 2010, Winner of the Boston Globe –Horn Book Award for Fiction, IRA Children’s Book Award for Young Adult Fiction, A Parents’ Choice Gold Award Winner and A National Parenting Publications Gold Award for her second novel, When You Reach Me, followed by achieving Guardian Prize in 2013 as the first winner for her third novel, Liar & Spy.

Mona Simpson’s "You Leave Them" depicts the relationship between Ann and her mother as they venture to California for her to become a TV star by the name of Heather. Heather reminiscences their road trip. She recalls stealing vegetables, hacking melons on streets sign, embarrassingly cleaning herself up in the restroom of a restaurant as ladies walked in and out, and the burden of washing the car before arriving to their hotel. Later that evening, she suggests to eat at the restaurant below them when her mother expresses how tired she it from driving all day. She gets a bit heated when the waiter comes to take their order and her mother frugality kicks in. However, her mother comes to terms with it and they enjoy the night; Simpson suggest

When you start to read the first words of a book by Jeff Zentner, you immediately become entranced by it. Especially with his second novel Goodbye Days, page after page you want to know more of what’s to come and it’s not an easy book to put down.

Gayle Forman is an American young-adult fiction author. She was born on June 5, 1970, in Los Angeles, California. Her best known book is If I Stay which was made into a film. Her other books are Where She Went, Just One Day, Just One Year and Leave Me ( the newest one). She used to be a journalist too. Forman's career began with writing for the teen magazine "Seventeen".