The Schwa Was Here

I just started reading "The Schwa Was Here" by Neal Shusterman. It’s the first book to break my Jodi Picoult cycle and it is a very different type of book. It's about a boy that the other children call the "Schwa". The "Schwa" is a boy who people don't notice. His friend, Antsy, calls it being functionally invisible. When the "schwa" is in a classroom with nine other people the teacher would only count nine students, if a group of people are standing in a circle they will not notice the "schwa unless he does something to draw direct attention to himself. He can overhear people talking about him because they won't see him even if he's standing a foot away in plain sight. When he meets Antsy, they conduct a bunch of experiments on whether or not people notice him and soon enough they are making a lot of money from people daring him to do things without getting noticed, like stealing donuts from the teacher's lounge or walking into the girl’s bathroom. 

The book is partly about the science fiction aspect of a partly invisible boy, but it is also about kids feeling invisible. The narrator, Antsy, lives in a big family where he can go unnoticed most of the time and at times he likes it but sometimes he doesn't. There's a contrast between the fiction of the invisible boy and the reality of a boy who feels invisible. I know that a lot of people my age feel unnoticed and some of them are. People just want to be noticed, to be acknowledged, to be seen. The book sends the message that you can make yourself noticed no matter who you are without being harmful to yourself and others. It manages to send the message while telling a comical science fiction story about a boy who actually is invisible. It in a funny way puts the other problem in perspective.

It's a book about invisibility whether it's wanted or unwanted, whether it’s real or metaphorical, whether it's helpful or not. It's a book about the two ids that have to learn how to deal with it or find a way to get rid of it. It’s a science fiction story that incorporates a story about a boy realizing that he wants to change and that he has to work hard to do that. Neal Shusterman is an amazing author and I would completely recommend his books.

The Tragedy of Romeo & Juliet

“The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet” written by Shakespeare, is known as the most famous love story of all time.  It’s a beautifully romantic drama with a tragic ending. It usually is thought of as the ultimate love story, but it’s also about so much more. A main theme in the story is loyalty. There is Romeo and Juliet's loyalty to each other, there is Tybalt's loyalty to Lord Capulet, and there is the loyalty between Mercutio and Romeo. Throughout the story, Shakespeare is able to portray the many loyalties that characters have to each other. The reasons behind these loyalties are mainly: love, family, and friendship.

            One of the most important loyalties in the story is the loyalty that Romeo and Juliet have to each other. It starts before they even know each other’s names. Once Juliet has met Romeo she claims that if she could not have him she would never be married. She pledges herself to him before she knows his name; it goes to show how loyal she is from the very start. The loyalty that they have for each other occasionally conflicts their other loyalties. When Juliet is talking about Romeo she says “Deny thy father and refuse thy name, / Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, / And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.”(2.2.37-39). Juliet is willing to give up her family for Romeo, whereas Romeo tries to take on Juliet’s family as his own. He acts as though her cousin Tybalt was his own family. When Tybalt challenges Romeo Romeo’s response is “I do protest I never injured thee / But love thee better than thou canst devise / Till thou shalt know the reason of my love. / And so, good Capulet, which name I tender / As dearly as mine own, be satisfied.”(3.1.69-73). Tybalt has a vendetta against Romeo, but because of Juliet, Romeo refuses to fight with Tybalt and claims to love him as family. The loyalty between Romeo and Juliet isn't one of those things that is started early on and doesn't last very long; it was so strong that they wanted to be together in death. Their loyalty to each other lasts throughout the entire story, and in the end the actually do die for each other.

            The biggest feud throughout the entire play is the one between the Montagues and the Capulets. Almost all of the characters side with one family even though no one seems to know why the two families hate each other. In the beginning it is stated rather simply by a Capulet that “The quarrel is between our masters and us / their men.”(1.1.20-21). the true feud seems to be between Lord Montague and Lord Capulet, but everyone is pulled in by their blood relation. One of the clearest examples of family born loyalty is Tybalt’s loyalty to the Capulets. At his Uncle’s party, Tybalt is the one who caught Romeo and his friends crashing the party. His immediate response is “This, by his voice, should be a Montague. - / Fetch me my rapier, boy.”(1.5.61-62) and “Now, by the stock and honor of my kin, / To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.”(1.5.66-67). He feels that Romeo is disrespecting his family so it would not be wrong to kill him. Although Tybalt is impulsive as a character and the choice to start a fight was his own, his real motive is to protect his family and its honor. Tybalt’s overall hatred towards the Montagues is brought on only by his Uncle’s feud. Tybalt feels the need to protect his family from the disrespect that he believes the Montagues are showing. This is despite the fact that he doesn't even know what his uncle's feud with Lord Montague really was.

            Another strong loyalty in the play is Romeo’s loyalty to his best friend Mercutio. It is so strong that at one point it overshadows his loyalty to Juliet. Mercutio has taken on the Montague’s side when it comes to the huge feud between the families. When Romeo is challenged by Tybalt and refuses to fight, Mercutio takes on the fight as his own. Romeo and Mercutio were incredibly close, so when Mercutio is killed, by Tybalt, it sets Romeo on the war path immediately. Romeo finds Tybalt and says “Mercutio’s soul / Is but a little way above our heads, / Staying for thine to keep him company. / Either thou or I, or both, must go with him.”(3.1.131-134). He says this referring to Mercutio's spirit and saying that he needs someone to die now to keep him company, It will be you, or me, or the both of us. Romeo is in a rage, because his friend had an untimely death, and at the least he shouldn't die alone. Romeo doesn't fear for his own life, he goes as far as to welcome death if it means that he will be able to keep Mercutio company. He was willing to kill or even die for his best friend, nothing else mattered.

            The loyalties in this story are amazingly strong and are shown for a variety of reasons. I thought that the best character relationships to represent these loyalties were Romeo & Juliet, Tybalt & Lord Capulet, and Romeo & Mercutio. They were the strongest loyalties in the story for love, family, and friendship. The scenarios in this story are very extreme compared to current family feuds. Nowadays you don’t try to kill someone simply because he came uninvited to your Uncle’s party. You might take on some of your friend’s battles metaphorically but there is not so much sword fighting now.  And when you get married you will have new in laws but hopefully they won’t be out to kill you for disrespecting your new father in law. The Loyalties in the play were more pronounced due to the lifestyle back then but these types of loyalty still do exist. It’s a part of everyday life, just without all the swordplay.

Perfect Match 2 (Spoiler Alert)

It wasn't until the second to last page of the book that I understood what the title was for. I had been trying really hard to figure it out and I was making all these wild connections to things that could have possibly fit. But nothing really made sense, until I read the last chapter. Usually the books I read, (mainly Jodi Picoult), have titles that interconnect with the story in a variety of ways and all of the characters have moments where you, as the reader, make the connection and are able to figure it out. It is usually mentioned in dialogue   at least once in the book. Or it's just blatantly obvious and you don't even have to think hard to figure it out. But this book was different; there were no subtle hints in the conversations, it didn't really weave through the book and relate to all of the characters, and it wasn't really clear why it was the title. 

When I first started to try to make connections I focused on the characters relationships  I tried to see if any of the characters were each others perfect match. But I couldn't really find anything; Nina and Patrick were definitely not perfect for each other because they both had really time consuming jobs and while Patrick was in love with Nina, Nina was already married and was not really in love with Patrick - she cared about him, but she wasn't in love with him. They did grow up together and they had the boy loves the girl-next-door thing going on for a while. In the beginning I thought it was going to be them but as the story went on you could tell that Patrick had lost his chance. As much as you pity Patrick and wish there was a way for them, it's pretty clear that it just wasn't going to work out.

The next character I focused on was Nathaniel. I was looking at his relationships with all the other characters. For a while I supposed that it had to be Nathaniel and his mother, Nina. Nina loves her son enough to commit murder (later ruled out to be manslaughter) and the only person that Nathaniel lives for is his mother, yes he loves his father too but he is more emotionally attached to Nina. When Nina is taken to a prison for a short time Nathaniel regresses so much that he needs therapy to teach him how to talk again. But while they do love each other and Nina definitely goes above and a bit too far beyond to prove her love for Nathaniel their relationship would be incorrectly labeled if you called them a perfect match. They were a family, they loved each other, but they weren't perfect for each other.

I skimmed over a couple of the other character relationships but none of them seemed to really make any sense with the title. Nina and Caleb are married but they don't agree on many things and they aren't very similar at all. Caleb and Nathaniel were just a typical father son and just lacked the intense connection that Nathaniel had with his mom. Patrick and Caleb both loved Nina but one of them got her and the other one didn't, and they weren't friends, they simply tolerated each other, and Caleb sort of pitied Patrick for being in love with his wife. Patrick and Nathaniel were really close because Patrick had a love for Nathaniel because he was Nina's son. I thought about the other more minor characters but none of them fit at all.

Then in the very last two pages of the book I finally got it. It was a relationship that I had sort of skipped because it didn't seem to stick out much. But on the second to last page you find out how Father Gwynne really died. Caleb poisoned him ! I was really surprised because Caleb seems like the sweet law abiding person in this story but he kills someone. Nina and Caleb both killed to protect their son; Nina killed Father Glen and Caleb killed Father Gwynne. The two that murdered out of love end up together, what a completely perfect match.

Perfect Match (Spoiler Alert)

The book "Perfect Match" by Jodi Picoult is about a mother who kills the person who is suspected of  molesting her son. The mother, Nina Frost, was a prosecutor who prosecuted against child molesters and abusers and rapists. She has a five year old son, Nathaniel, who she loves with all her heart. When she and her husband, Caleb Frost, find out that Nathaniel was molested it starts a legal battle against the person that Nathaniel named as his molester Father Glen. During the court case Nina buys a gun and shoots and kills the defendant in court. This starts another case with Nina as the defendant. They are pleading insanity at the time of the crime and during this court case it was found that Father Glen, their local priest, was not guilty of molesting Nathaniel. It was actually a visiting priest named Father Gwynne. When Nathaniel named his molester he said "Father Gwynne" but it was interpreted as "Father Glen" because Nathaniel was known to not be able to pronounce his "N"s and Father Glen was the only local priest alone with a name like that. They weren't aware that a Father Gwynne even existed.

The main character in the story s Nina, she is the one who you hear from the most and a lot of the story is from her perspective. It was hard for me to read the book without getting mad that Nina had these two great guys in love with her and she was, in my opinion completely insane. What makes her insane is that she was completely lucid when she held her gun up to the priest's head and shot him four times. I know that at the time that everyone was 99.999999% sure that it was Father Glen that molested Nathaniel, but even then I think it was wrong that she shot him. I think that someone who molests children definitely deserves to die, but in this case I think it was idiotic that Nina was willing to risk Nathaniel growing up without a mother. Especially because Nathaniel was extremely attached to Nina and didn't function well without her.

Patrick Ducharme, the boy next door from Nina's childhood has been in love with her since they were children. But when Patrick shipped off to Afghanistan he was never able to tell Nina how he felt and she met Caleb Frost and fell in love. Patrick would even imagine a future with Nina, he would think that she would finally notice him and realize that she had feelings for him. But then Nathaniel was born and it was clear that Patrick could never ruin the kid's life by stealing his mother away. And Patrick grew to love Nathaniel almost as much as he loved Nina, he thought of Nathaniel as the son that he never had with the girl of his dreams. It's bothersome to me to hear him fawning over Nina even after she murders someone to regain her revenge or justice or whatever her excuse for it is. 

Another guy completely head over heels in love with Nina is her husband. Caleb was aware that Patrick is in love with his wife but he never questioned Nina's fidelity and pitied Patrick because he would never had what Caleb had. Caleb is completely thrown off when Nina kills Father Glen and is shocked and takes Nathaniel out of the house because he can't trust her anymore. But then he forgives her and comes back home. Caleb is put in an odd position because Nathaniel is also his son and he knows that he would have been willing to kill to keep Nathaniel safe as well. The difference is that Caleb saw how being convicted as a murderer would also harm Nathaniel. I think that Caleb is much more reasonable when it comes to his reaction to Nina's crime. But in the end he still goes back to her.

I understand that Nina thought she was getting justice but she was wrong and for a while I almost hoped that she would be convicted for the murder because murder is wrong. But there is more to the problem, and its name is Nathaniel. Nathaniel didn't deserve to lose a mother and if she was taken away he would blame himself  even though it wasn't his fault at all. Nina definitely deserves to go to prison but Nathaniel doesn't deserve to have his mother taken away. It can be hard to read a book when you can't even decide on your own opinion.