Jess Walter's We Live In Water

In the article Skin Deep written by Nina Jablonski and George Chaplin, they discuss and look deeper into the diverse differences in skin color. Our skin color has developed over the years to be dark enough to prevent the damaging sunlight that has been harming our skin and the nutrient folate that it carries. At the same time out skin is light enough to receive vitamin D.

In Danielle Allen’s essay, Our Declaration, she argues that all people should understand and recognize that the Declaration gives all people in the United States the undeniable freedom to self-govern. One person has the power to change the government; although this is not specifically stated, the freedom to self-govern implies every voice matters. She guides the reader to this idea by using simple and easy to follow examples to show the reader that they have the power to invoke a change the government. Allen also uses credible sources in order to give her reasoning credibility as well as using arguments that elicit an emotional connection.

Dogeaters is Jessica Hagedorn’s first novel. The author returned to her native Philippines in 1988 to write the work, and it was published in 1990 when it received the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. The novel reflects the eclectic life of its author whose experiences have included acting, singing, songwriting, and writing poetry, drama, and fiction. For the most part, Dogeaters has been well received by critics and scholars who commend its experimental nature and innovative writing style. Jessica Hagedorn is a well-respected post-colonial author whose works present gender, social, and cultural themes. Dogeaters is considered one of the most widely studied novels about the Philippines and is an important example of

Amy Tan’s short story, Fish Cheeks, outlines the general idea of self-acceptance. As the narrator, fourteen year old Tan declares her love for her minister’s son, Robert, who unlike herself, is “as white as Mary in the manger” (Tan 1). This crush is anything but healthy, primarily because Tan is reluctant to reveal her true self to him. This hesitance she portrays is strikingly recognizable in the teenagers of today’s world. Amy Tan 's story, "Fish Cheeks," is significant to the adolescents of today 's society through the overall structure, quality, and applicability of the piece as the struggle to accept oneself as an individual is still as present as it ever was.

    The narrator finds herself economically and emotionally dependent on her husband, John.  Many times she questions to herself why she stays in the room all of the time.  She then answers herself by saying, " John says it is good for me" (Gilman, 665).  She thinks of her husband as much wiser and more important than she, which is the way that society treated males during the time period the story was written.  During this era, women were discouraged from joining the work force and were thought to be better suited as a mother, and wife rather than an employee.   This is the common stereotype that women tried to overcome during the women's movement.

In the book, The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey, the unusual formatting it used intrigued me. The book goes around in different yet related points of view. As you go from point of view to point of view you find out more information about the situation going on. The book is about Earth in the midst of being taken over by aliens. It’s all very secretive and it’s brilliant how Yancy lets us in on the secret through dramatic irony. The points of view all revolve around the main character, Cassie, and you see the world through the eyes of the enemy and the people around her. This format also creates more suspense because it shows the reasoning for everything and helps sympathize with the antagonist. The separate points of view of everyone’s lives were

Gail Godwin’s Sorrowful Woman develops the message that the archetypal role of mother and wife is so constricting and limiting as to force ‘the mother’ character to end her life. The end of the story demonstrates the power of rhetoric, contrast, and detached narration in creating the text’s message.

Justin Torres Novel We the Animals is a story about three brothers who lived a harassed childhood life. There parents are both young and have no permanent jobs to support their family. The narrator and his brothers are delinquents who are mostly outside, causing trouble, causing and getting involved in a lot of problems and barely attending school, which their parents allowed them to do. The narrator and his brothers were physically abused by their father, leading them to become more violent to one another and others, drinking alcohol and dropping out of school. Physical abuse is an abuse involving one person’s intention to cause feelings of pain, injury and other physical suffering and bodily harm to the victim. Children are more

In Bayou Farewell by Mike Tidwell, Tidwell explores how the Cajuns in Southern Louisiana have been impacted by climate change. Tidwell brings to attention that Louisiana has 40% of the United States’ wetlands, but people do not realize all of the economic benefits and ecosystem services that these wetlands provide. Sadly, these wetlands are being submerged and destroyed at the rate of over a football field an hour. The main causes of Louisiana’s wetlands disappearing are the levees that prevent the Mississippi from dropping rich sediment at the mouth of the river to create barrier islands, and the careless actions of oil and gas companies (creating pipelines everywhere and frequent oil spills).

The Canadian novel ‘Crow Lake’ by Mary Lawson, published in 2002, was awarded in Canada as First Novel Award in the same year it was published and won the McKitterick Prize in 2003. The author Mary Lawson was born and brought up in a small farming community in southern Ontario. After graduating from McGill University, she moved to England in 1968. She still lives there with her husband and sons, though she returns to Canada every year. The story took place in a small town called Crow lake in northern Ontario. In this book Kate Morrison, the main character, leads the reader through her journey for healing from past mistakes dealing with her family. At the beginning, Kate who is seven, and her siblings Luke, Matt, and Bo, experienced a tough time surviving after their parents were killed in a car crash, which impacted them for the rest of their lives.

The nonfiction book, There Are No Children Here by Alex Kotlowitz attempts to awaken the reader’s sense of outrage that children are made to suffer needlessly. The author conveys this message through the lives of two boys, Lafeyette and Pharoah, surviving in the Henry Horner Homes which is a public housing unit with crime and neglect. In the Preface, the author explains how he met Lafeyette and Pharoah. He explains he met these two boys through writing an interview for a friend doing a photo essay. Though Kotlowitz interviewed over ten children, Lafayette's description of violence unnerved him. He spoke in terms of “if he grew up” rather than “when he grew up.” He wasn’t sure he would make it to adulthood. Also, he explains that the title comes from the boy’s mother. When asked if he could interview her children, LaJoe replies “but you know, there are no children here. They’ve seen too much to be children.”

Let the Water Hold Me Down by Michel Spurgeon is written in a very unique and skillful way of the realities of being of human, and dealing with loss and grief, guilt and longing, loyalty and love. These psychopathologies affect the readers and present a different way of seeing the text. By applying critical theory to this novel, not only the reader but the main character, Hank Singer, gets a different perspective, a new lens after making several changes in his life. Critical theory helps individuals observe from an unusual angle and learn things in new ways, different from his or her typical way of viewing things. It opens up new lenses, and through this new lens, it can lead to new understanding or unfortunately, make things harder to understand. "Knowledge is what constitutes our relationship to our world, for it is the lens through which we view our world"Tyson states if the lens is changed, the view and the viewer may be changed as well.

The novel “A Stolen Life” isn’t called a stolen life for no reason, Phillip Garrido literally stole 18 years of Jaycee Dugard’s life. Phillip Captured Jaycee at age 11 off the street as she was walking to school. Phillip kept her captive for 18 years. Jaycee went through many major struggles in life that not everyone would have been able to survive. Jaycee’s conflict with Philip teaches the reader to be thankful for what they have through Jaycees experience of her captivity.

-The message that the poem Everything is Everything is trying to develop is that although change is hard, you can subdue it by confronting it. Lauren N. Hill believes that anybody can brave change. When you show valiant towards something you are facing it even though you are frightened of it and the income it is going to bring. When you brave something, usually it is when you experience different things that you have never gone throught.

In “We are made of water,” Marilyn Dumont uses the image of water to depict the similarities every person has with another, by being a human being. The water acts as the bridge on that Dumont wants to be seen as an equal despite being coming from an ethnic minority with that being the Metis for her. Through the physical barrier, Dumont shows just how similar everyone can be, also illustrating a nature vs nurture scenario, in that by nature or through the physical looks, people are similar just like how everyone is made of water. The poem illustrates how she has finally found her position in the world, a fully blooming flower that struggled to bloom throughout her life in a white dominant society. Of all the poems she could’ve ended her book