Melissaghoneybee's Blog

Ok so I did read ahead a little bit but that’s ok. There is definately a lot going on in this book. Birdie is trying to figure out who exactly she is. Sometimes she says that she feels like Jesse Goldman because she’s been pretending to be her for so long…4 years? I’m not really sure of the exact number but I know it’s been a couple of years. I can’t believe she hasn’t seen her sister or father in a couple years. She was so close to Cole and relied on her for a lot of stuff. Cole was the only one who really got Birdie and understood her. Now Birdie has to figure out who she is on her own. She obviously doesn’t look black, and there are barely any blacks where they live. There is one black girl named Samantha who Birdie’s friend despises because she stole her spot on the baton team. I’m not sure if that’s what it’s called exactly but I know it has something to do with Batons lol. There is also a black guy in the school, and there were some people trying to hook up the black guy and Samantha but they don’t even talk to each other. I’m really interested in the scene where Birdie is talking to Samantha outside of the party. Birdie goes outside to pee in the woods and Samantha is there. Birdie asked Samantha to wait for her after she pees. Birdie asks Samantha what she thinks Birdie is, as in what race she is. Samantha says “I heard you were Jewish, and I know you wear the star of david around your neck.” Then Samantha says that Birdie is black, like her. It was interesting how Birdie asked her what color she was. She wanted to see if a black person could recognize another black person I think. I’m interested to see if anything happens because of this. I’m also interested to see what happens when Birdie runs away.

I read a little bit ahead in this section and this section had a lot of stuff going on. I really like how Birdie now has friends. Before she was alone and always with her mother traveling from place to place, but now that they’ve settled in New Hampshire, Birdie has found a group of friends. I feel like Birdie is always trying to figure out who she is. Obviously some people see her as white and some see her as black. Everyone in New Hampshire thinks she’s white and Jewish because of the star of david that she wears. Birdie sometimes feels as though she has become Jesse Goldman in some ways and doesn’t feel like birdie anymore. Nobody even knows her as birdie. I love the little romance that Birdie and Nicholas have. They’re so cute together riding Mr.Sensitive and smoking pot together lol. I was suprised she smoked with him. Maybe I’m going a little too far into the story lol. I’m not really sure where the cut of point is for all of the information. I also like how Nicholas’ family has sort of become birdie’s second family. They let her come over whenever she wants and hang out. This family is definately suspicious of Birdie and her mother and are always talking about them. Birdie is definately afraid that she is gonna give away their secret. I really like this book and I’m curious to see where it goes from here. I hope the family can hopefully get back together and Birdie can become reunited with Cole again.

Wow…a lot of changes in this section of the book. Their father gets a new girlfriend named Carmen, who is a black version of barbie. She adores Cole, but does not like Birdie for some reason and i’m not sure why. She basically ignores Birdie when they are all together and seems upset when Birdie tags along, as if Carmen just wants  to be with Cole. I feel as though Birdie is really disliked because of her skin tone. She’s still black, but very light skinned and I feel like Carmen doesn’t like that for some reason. I’m also very confused as to why their father went to Brazil with Carmen and Cole. I know they’re probably going into hiding just like Birdie and her mother are, but I’m confused as to why they picked Brazil. I’m also confused as to why their mother needs to go into hiding and get out of boston. I know the FBI are looking for her and Birdie, but I’m curious as to what their mother did and why she needed to borrow money from their grandmother. That was a really strange visit that they had. Their mother seems racist, and sees Birdie as being white. She doesn’t like the fact that the girls go to an all black school because it’s not safe. Another thing that was sort of strange was when Redbone came to their school and took a picture of Birdie on the playground. It was very random that he was there. Maybe he was taking a picture of her to send to the FBI so they could see what she looks like and be able to catch them. Redbone is very shady to me and I’m curious as to what he is up to as well as their mother. The scene with her and the black men who had the green van was weird. I’m curious as to what was in the duffle bags. We’ll just have to read more and hopefully theses questions will be answered.

I really like this book. There’s definately a lot going on in this book but it’s interesting to read. I love the relationship that Cole and Birdie have. Cole watches out for her little sister and is probably the only person that knows her the best. She protects her in school when she gets picked on by the other girls because they think she’s white. I couldn’t believe what the girls did to her in the bathroom. I felt so bad for birdie. She’s so confused about who she is. I think it’s kinda weird how the children have to say “black is beautiful” every day in class. I don’t really like how their father favors Cole over Birdie and is closer to her. I’m glad that Birdie got a chance to spend one on one time with him in the park, even though the police interrogated them. Race is definately a big theme in this book. Everything revolves around race…the family, the school, the people in their community. The family is being excluded from everyone in their community. Birdie was excluded at school, but now that the other children know that she’s black, she now fits in. Birdie tries to change her image to fit in as well. She buys new clothes and gets her hair done by her friend (I forgot her friend’s name). I’m glad that she’s finally fitting in, and now she has a new group of friend’s called The Brown Sugars. I think it’s funny that girls can only be in the group if they have a boyfriend. How old are these girls…9? lol it just seems so funny. I’m interested to see what new things we discover when we read the rest of the book.

I’ve actually never seen this movie before but I really liked it! I especially love dash…he was so funny and cute! Violet kinda reminded me of Margot Tenenbaum because of the way she looked and how she was very quiet. This family definately values their identity and making sure they keep it hidden. They got into a lot of trouble in the past with lawsuits and everything so they wanted to make sure that the public didn’t know that they were super heros. They do everything they can to be as “normal” as possible, such as not letting dash play sports or do track because everyone would see how fast he can run and realize his super power. The external forces that impacted this family are the media and the public in general. They sued Mr.Incredible because he saved someone who was trying to commit suicide and the man didn’t want to be saved. The man also got a neck injury because of Mr.Incredible saving him. Also, the passengers on the L train sued him because of the train accident and they got injured as well. Because of all of this, Mr.Incredible had to give up his job of saving people and entered into the superhero relocation program. He tried to live a normal life, got married and had some children, and ended up gaining a lot of weight. He would sneak out on wednesday nights with Frozone and say that he was going bowling but really was going to save people who were in need. Later on in the movie, Incrediboy who kept annoying Mr.Incredible and tried to be his sidekick, ends up becoming his enemy and tries to destroy him and his family. Incrediboy is another external force that has an impact on this family. He threatens them and becomes their enemy. This movie was really cute and I really enjoyed it!

I was contemplating a couple of ideas for the paper. I’m thinking about writing about love, which I know is pretty easy but I want to talk about more than that. I know that love is the driving force for most of the characters that we’ve read…Beli, David, Lola, Oscar, and sort of Yunior. I want to talk about how love has driven them to do things that they never thought they would (having sex in a closet), and how the characters would go out of their way for love. I also want to talk about how mistreatment and hatred have been things that the characters had to deal with in the name of love. One example of this is david’s trial. David (in his mind) loved Melanie and loved being around her. But because of what he did and the circumstances, his job was on the line and he quit his job because of what he did. The university did not like him because of what he did and what he said or didn’t say at his hearing. Another example is oscar. Oscar didn’t have many friends because he wasn’t very sociable and was a loner. He had always wanted a girlfriend but was too shy to ever talk to one. People made fun of him because of how he looked. Oscar didn’t care that he didnt have friends, he just wanted a girlfriend. He was very happy to have Yunior as his roomate, even though Yunior just wanted to get closer to Lola. Lola is another example. She ran off with that guy because she was “in love” and didn’t care what her mom thought. All of these characters had to deal with hatred and mistreatment in the name of love.

Ok so I didn’t really like the way the book ended. It just ended with David giving up a dog to have him euthanized. I didn’t really think that the book would end that way. I thought it would end with David and Lucy becoming closer or something like that. Also, this last section of the book showed me that Lucy is definately not thinking clearly. She wants to stay on the farm even though she knows that the three guys are still around and the young boy is related to Petrus and lives with him. David was trying to talk some sense into her and telling her to leave and start a new life but she wasn’t having it. In this section, I felt that Lucy was not making any sense when she was making her decisions and David was the one that had his head on straight. He went to Melanie’s parents house and apologized (which suprised me) and he was trying to help his daughter in any way that he could. I wasn’t really suprised when Lucy said that she was pregnant. Three guys raped her and she hadn’t gone to her gynocologist so I knew that something like that would happen. One part in this section of the book that was kinda weird and random was when David went to Melanie’s play. Her boyfriend was throwing spit balls at David. That seems pretty childish to me and Melanie’s boyfriend is in college. He seems a little immature to me by doing that. And also, he told David that Melanie would spit in his eye if she ever saw him again. What’s up with Ryan and spit? Anyway, I think the ending of the book was kinda boring and just ended with David staying in Africa and working at the animal clinic with Bev. Overall I liked the book but just not the ending.