Reading Response

I've just finished reading Fifty Shades Darker by E.L James. The author wrote this in first person, and also included the narrator's thoughts throughout the book. The main character is Anastasia Steele and throughout the book she is the one describing everything by her point of view.

In some parts of the book, Anastasia does things without telling the reader. On page 116 she explains how Christian, her boyfriend, pulls on her bottom lip, making her stop biting it. She never said anything about biting her lip before, this shows the effect that her boyfriend has on her, he makes her forget things and just focus on her.

It almost seems like E.L. James didn't write the book, but Anastasia Steele did. It's like if Anastasia is a person in real life with all of the descriptions she gives in the first, and in this book. It makes you forget about the actual author completely.

Throughout the book, the author includes some of Anastasia's personal thoughts to actions around her. On pages 366 through 370, she includes her short thoughts in italics, and her inferences on the actions of others in the regular fonts: "Oh. What's he doing in here? Oh, fuck." "Keep him talking, keep him talking, keep him talking." In these pages, Anastasia's boss is hitting on her, and possibly trying to rape her.

Throughout the book, she includes many of her inferences, but most of all, questions: "why doesn't he let me touch him?" page 117 "where is he going with this?" page 369 "how did all this happen?" page 349. Throughout the book she seems completely confused from all the questions she asks, most of them get answered, some of them don't.

Reading Response

Reading Response

Ned Vizzini, the author of The Other Normals, makes the main character, Perry Eckert, seem like a geek. In the book, Perry is fifteen, but is described as a ten year old. Perry has an older brother who is always at parties getting drunk, Jake. 

On the first page, Perry states that he was “alone in a room playing with myself. Not in that way – playing Creatures & Caverns, the popular role-playing game.” He describes the game as popular. The name that Vizzini gave the game doesn’t make it sound popular: it makes it sound childish and geeky. 

Throughout the book, Ned Vizzini makes Perry do things he thought he couldn’t be able to do, but for his games. On page 55, Perry punches a kid on the forehead and leaves it bloody. On page 44, he fights with his brother to get his game back, and the author describes Perry and his brother both being surprised of Perry’s speed, since Perry is usually very slow.  

When I was getting through the beginning of this book, I actually understood Perry. I understand his addiction to these games and how he wants to have them with him all the time. I was addicted to playing Pokémon. It was a huge addiction. I always stood awake from seven to twelve in the morning playing it. Like Perry, it also affected my school grades.

But unlike Perry’s parents, my parents never sent me to a camp to recover from my addiction.