Schwartz, John. "Helping a Child to Come Out". New York Times. March 21, 2013.
This article reads the statistics of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgenders, and talks about different stories of mothers with children who are. Studies say that teenagers with this problem have higher rates of suicide, depression, and alcohol abuse. Parents try to let them know they have unconditional love and a safe home to be discussed.
The part that I agree with the most is when said, "It's the role of the parents to the and create the open path" because it means that parents should always be there to help provide an easier way to get through tough situations. Even though I am a bit disagreeing towards homosexuality I would never verbally harass another individual for their orientation. However, I'm glad most parents still do embrace their gay child.
Deadline by Chris Crutcher
What if you only had a year to live, and you knew it? Ben Wolf is an eighteen-year-old who lives in a small town in Idaho. In the beginning of his senior year, he finds out he's dying of a rare blood disease. He's lucky to even have a year. Ben makes a decision to not tell anybody. Not his parents, coach, or his younger brother, Cody, who he has an extremely close relationship with. He also chooses to deny treatment. Ben had big things planned, but suddenly takes a detour to live his final days as normal ones.
Death is a major theme in this book. Ben tries to befriend the town drunk, and although Ben has been helping the priest fix his life, the priest becomes even more depressed and commits suicide. Ben's condition gets worse to the point where he can't get out of bed. He then dies three weeks before his high school graduation.
The story takes place in Trout, Idaho. In a population of 943, Trout is one of those towns where everybody is known by everybody else. I don't think that the plot would be changed if it were to take place in the city because Ben's decision was to keep it a secret and make his last year normal. He says he feels a congruence when he's told that his disease was terminal and he never really saw himself growing up. So I don't think the setting would affect the plot in any way.
Dallas Suzuki is the girl of Ben's dreams. She interviews him for the school paper, and they eventually sleep together and develop a relationship. She later tells him that she was molested/raped by her uncle, and she only slept with him to test if she was ruined or not. Suddenly the story changes when her little brother turns out to be her son. When Ben tells her about his disease, she gets angry and breaks up with him. They barely speak until the of the story. She has a big impact on Ben because he is infatuated by her. She ends up being an important character in the story after she reveals her secrets. Rudy McCoy is the town drunk. No one cares about him except Ben who starts to feels closer to him after finding out they share an interest of Malcolm X. Throughout the story, Ben tries to help Rudy get his drunken life together. He then opens up to Ben and confesses that he is an ex-catholic priest who molested a little boy to the point where he commits suicide. Rudy's never been sober since. As Ben often visits his home with food and supplements, they talk about Malcolm X. I guess Malcolm X helps Ben have a different point of view in the world and agrees with a lot of the things the book overall talks about.
The beginning of the book, which is probably the first hundred pages, consists of the introduction. I thought that it was too wordy. However, part of it was about how Ben joined football but too much of the book was spent too much talking about other things I didn't find relevant to the story. Close to the end when he started to actually get sick, the book barely even talked about it when I thought it was supposed to be the main idea. His arguments with his teacher, which happened every chapter, also got really old after a while. I found myself skipping through parts.
“I think when you’re dying you start looking for important things in the corners.” (Page 88) When you know you're dying you look at life differently. You look everywhere for a meaning that you can't let pass you. ". . . If the oxygen mask drops down, be sure to put on your own before helping anyone with theirs." (Page 140) There's really only one person who can be saved. "You put yourself out there in the truest way you can and hope others do the same. You'll connect or you won't, but you did what you could." (Page 288) Don't try too hard to set an example or be a leader.
One major event was 123 pound, 5-footed Ben being on the football team. He tries out focusing to be the best player his school has ever seen. This is one of his decisions to living a normal life. He was going to state for cross country but after finding out about his disease by getting his physical, he suddenly signs up for football. Another major event is when Rudy McCoy dies. After he comes out as being fascinated with young boys and having a history of molesting one, he becomes depressed and eventually commits suicide when remembering the little boy also took his life because of him. The last major event is when Sooner Cowans, another star player on the team, dies in a car crash the same time Ben starts coming out about his disease. The whole town became devastated.
Agreed reviews: "This book was a bit weird for me. I liked that the general fact of the novel, that the protagonist is going to die, is presented at the very beginning but the way it was written wasn’t as agreeable for me to begin with. I think that of all the books that I have read so far, this one was a bit harder for me to read because I kept getting distracted. I don’t think that the idea that an eighteen year old will keep the secret that he has been told that he is going to die is entirely implausible, I think I can relate to keeping something so grand and inhibiting from others a secret." (Michelle, http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/275844.Deadline, 04/14/13)
"We bought the book required for a college course. Upon reading the first couple of chapters found that not only does it swear, which we could overlook but it blasphemes our Lord, Jesus Christ. There fore I would not recommend this book to people who are christians because we do not need to blaspheme our Savior." (Randall Guinn, http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/review/B002ZNJWFY/R2DEEIY692MEHK?cursor=3&filter=2&sort=byRankDescending, 04/14/13)
""Put your own oxygen mask on before you try to help anyone else. Life is your practice field. The state playoffs are inside you." I love the way Crutcher seeps deep inside your head and makes you think. Ben is a great character. He is "normal" but beyond this years in the way he sees things in his shortened life. It makes you wonder if it wouldn't be better to know of your impending death." (Caren Cowan, http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/review/B002ZNJWFY/R3LPBLSQ6VZSKP?cursor=4&sort=rd, 04/14/13)
The book was overall powerful and the whole moral of the story is that secrets can kill just as much as a disease. Telling the truth is a very influential part of life. He showed people to live each day as if it were their last, mostly because it was him to have experienced it.
RSS Feed
