The End

I Just finished James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, and I must say the book and a really good rhythm. I made two really poor graph's explaining (graph 1) Jame's emotional state as the book progresses, and (Graph 2), how you feel, as the reader, as the book progresses, how intense the book is as you read.
Graph 1:

Graph 2:

Neither of these graphs include the emotional strife you go through as a reader when reading the "epilogue". Which would probably look like how a heart rate looks on a heart rate monitor, and it's only a page and a quarter long. The "epilogue" just explains where the character in the book are now.
At one point in the book the therapists explain that only 15% of addicts actually recover, and remain sober, and the epilogue hits home on that issue. Characters you have grown attached to die, or end up in jail, some are part of the 15% and are perfectly fine, some characters that you thought you hated when you read the book get what they deserve but you still feel bad for them.

I think that some high schoolers don't think they will get addicted to drugs and alcohol, or sex, but addicts start somewhere. Addicts can, and do, start in highschool, and I think a lot of highschoolers don't think they'll get addicted but it's a real possibility. This book makes me think of the people I know that do things they shouldn't, and it makes me hope to God that it's just a phase, that they're not as hurt, and messed up, as these people in this book at turn out to be addicts. It's just... Sad. So little addicts make it to a happy sober life, it makes me sad.
Great book and I advise it to any book lover, and all highschoolers (even though it's language isn't school appropriate)

Just a thought on kindness that James Brought me too

this'll be quick I promise. I read a lot tonight. Not gonna lie, I didn't finish the book like I was supposed to but I didn't realize how much i had to read so, I'll finish it tomorrow. I'm only 50 pages from the end. ANYWAY. I  read past all the drama I wrote about earlier and got to this part where James met a new patient, a big guy with no left arm and half of his right, with tattoo's and was scary, even to a bunch of drug addicts, and was smelly...like, rotten flesh, hasn't bathed in a year, brushed his teeth with motor oil 4 years ago smelly. The description was brutal. The unit gets a big feast, for... basically no reason other than  there is gonna be a TV fight they're all excited for (this is a big communion scene for my English teacher's knowledge), so they are all eating this big feast and stuffing their faces and James notices Sr.Scary Face and asks him if he wants James to get him some of the food. The man does NOT respond nicely. He yells and says F you and tells him everyone is just going to relapse in 6 months and it's all I lie. James just walked away (cause he's recovering and is strong and I love it and I cheered in my head when I read him walking away), but well... It made me mad.
It got me thinking about kindness most of all, over the annoyance I felt for this man I got thinking, in middle school we got fed this "Racheles Challenge" thing, which I honestly think they just pumped up to make us be kinder to one another, but they said that Rachelle was the kind of girl that came up to new kids who sat alone at lunch and invited them to sit with her and her friends no matter what they looked like. I have always tried to be like that, and I don't know if thats because of this Rachelles Challenge thing or if it's because my parents raised me to be a good human being, or if it's just in my genes, but I did think about how not many people do this. Yes we do this for foreign exchange students because they're exotic and cool, and for the transfers that are pretty and smell nice and are on the lacrosse team, but who does that for Sr. Scary Face? In 5th grade a girl transferred here and she was Jewish and a tad overweight and no one talked to her. I did, and my parents said they were really proud of me, and I've always tried to be like that. I just think about all the times I see kids either ignore the no so attractive, or fat, or smelly kid, and well... I think that's wrong. I've always tried to talk to those kids, the outcasts. Maybe that's why it made me mad when Sr. Scary Face yelled at James. He was just trying to be nice, I guess I identify with him in that moment, and I want to be the kind of person who can just walk away when someone says "F you" when I was only trying to be nice.

On a side note, You probably shouldn't take my word when I say "this'll be short" yeah. Sorry... That wasn't short. I'll work on it. Also, totally unrelated note, I'm writing this on my new mac book pro, and as I'm writing this, in my "dock" on the bottom of my screen, as I'm writing there is a reflection f my writing as I'm writing it. It's only a tad REALLY COOL!
Anyway. I'll blog about the end tomorrow. Probably.

A little something to think about

I am in the midst of reading my book, A Million Little Pieces, and something happened and I wanted to write something about it before it left my mind. The past 3 days of me reading this book have been really special. I think I stopped reading this book right around the time where James stops his wreckless behavior and starts getting better. The past 3 days I’ve noticed little things that show that he is getting better. Little things, like, slowly, he’s being able to look himself in the eyes, which he hasn’t done in Years. His scars are healing which is so full of symbolism it makes me want to burst. His “Fury” is calming and he is learning to deal with it, he can stand to be around his parents, to let them hug him, to let them help him, and something he doesn’t say outright in the book. He finally tells Lily, the girl he’s seeing but isn’t supposed to be seeing, that he loves her. Last time I read the book (in the summer) he couldn’t say it, he was just so indecisive. It was always “I don’t know” or “maybe” or “does it matter”? with James, and you can tell he’s getting better just by him making the decision that yes, figuring out your emotions and telling someone how you feel is important.
Now, this is not why I wanted to write this blog post. Instead, I wanted to write about something else. This may be a Spoiler but this is for my English class so, SPOILER ALERT, I’m reading this, and after Lily and James get caught together (nothing bad, they were just in the forest and she was crying about her grandma and he told her he loved her and then the unit people came and got mad), and James chills in his room for 2 hours waiting for the unit guy (i don’t know what to call him, he probably has a title but James just calls him Lincoln. So his name is Lincoln) to come  and get him so he can yell at James. After 2 hours of him telling himself he’s not going to leave and escape the yelling and just go get messed up, Lincoln finally comes and tells James he’s ready for him in his office. SO-James goes to the office only to find the news that James is not going to be kicked out even though he broke one of the cardinal rules, don’t talk to women, as long as he doesn’t brake any more rules. James is cool with that, which is another step towards his recovery, but that’s a seperate thing anyway, but then James finds out Lily has left. Not because she was kicked out, but Lily has left because she can no longer see James. Now THIS is what I want to blog about. James tells Lincoln “I know where she’s going, I can go get her and bring her back and you guys can help her” Lincoln says now, and, in a polite “this is for class” way, he says Screw you to Lincoln, tells him off for not wanting to help someone in English desperate need of help, and leaves. This is where I stopped to blog. James was making such progress, and to leave, it kind of breaks my heart. At the same time he’s doing a good deed, he’s trying to help Lily. It just makes me think of the stupid things we as humans do when we’re in love. We talked about this today in psychology. About doing dumb things, things we would never otherwise do, but when we are in love, logic just goes out the window and even though you may think you’re doing the right thing you are really doing something stupid. I just thought it was so interesting that he just got up and left. There a million reasons for James to stay, not only for his sobriety but he is a wanted man and the people at the rehab center are working it out for him trying to reduce his prison time that he has to do when he gets out. If he leaves, where is he gonna be in that situation? James doesn’t even think about that though. He just thinks about helping Lily. That brings to me to another psychology thing. Freud said that you never truly do anything for anyone else, you always have some ulterior motive that will help you if you help someone else. Where is James being helped here? Freud was wrong about a lot of things, and I think in some cases the being nice thing is right but not always and he is one of the cases where it isn’t. James is screwing himself by helping Lily, but he’s doing it anyway.

I’ve done dumb stuff for love before, I’ve done dumb stuff for love, and dumb stuff out of anger, I guess it might be interesting to pose the question, “Take a step back and look at your life and your decisions... Were they all rational? What did you do that was just... dumb?”