Blonde Ambition pgs. 184- 233

Summary: To conclude Blonde Ambition, Zoey Dean ends the story with a happy ending. The guy that Anna had come to know while working with Cammie's father, is the guy that Anna falls in love with at the end. It seemed that all the trouble that Cammie went through to try and steal Danny from Anna was not really worth it. Anna ultimately ended up with the guy that she thought that she could never have a future with because she was previously in a relationship. With Cammie, she just had to realize that Anna was now going to be apart of her life. Cammie's father really liked Anna and if Cammie didn't change the ways she treated Anna, her life was going to become miserable.
Quote: "Anything was possible. Anything."(Dean 233).
Reaction: Now that Anna is well liked by Cammie's father and officially apart of his 'Hermosa Beach' team, Cammie has no other choice but to like Anna. Things seem to be looking up for Anna because of the positive attitude that Anna had when encountering any situation. Instead of trying to getting even, tit-for-tat action with Cammie, Anna knew where her mindset was going to take her. By Anna believeing that anything was possible, she proved it. Throughout the novel, i didn't like how Zoey Dean stuck to the classic, cliche,` mean girls plot, but after i read the end, i see that the plot worked out. By Anaa leaving her comfort zone, which is home, to explore life on her own, she encountered some obstacles that made her successful in the end. Also, what i liked at the end was how Anna returned back home to her family; she returned back to her comfort zone.

Blonde Ambition pgs. 133-184

Summary: Cammie is still treating Anna like a peasant in the street. Cammie's father is the producer of Hermosa Beach, a new hit TV show in hollywood, and Cammie uses that against Anna. Cammie uses her father as something to hold over Anna's head; anything wrong that Anna does to Cammie, Cammie has the authority to tell her father. Right now in her life, Cammie has a boyfriend named Ben but there is also another guy that Anna really likes. What Cammie tries to do is steal Anna's new 'guy friend.' Zoey Dean specifically dedicates a chapter to the actions that Cammie takes to try and still this guy away from Anna. What i question is whether this plot will have a classic cliche` ending, which is Cammie realizing all the wrong things she's done to Anna, and ultimately changing her personality at the end of the story.

Quote: "So she pulls Danny close and kissed him back."(Dean 183)

Reaction: As I'm reading, I'm noticing more and more that the way that Zoey Dean writes appeals to me like Gossip Girl. The Gossip Girl novel takes the same approach as Zoey Dean when telling a story about life in a busy city. I feel more like I am watching something like 'the young and the restless' rather than reading a bildungsroman novel.

Blonde Ambition pgs. 88-133

Summary: In chapters 10 through 14, the readers learn more about the boss's daughter. The boss's daughter is named Cammie, and I already see that she is going to be a problem. Zoey Dean portrays Cammie as the clichè mean girl whose main purpose in the story is to make Anna's life a living hell, which is true, because Cammie is. Cammie's father is a famous big shot who spoils and corrupts her with the money that he earns for his exclusive productions. We, the readers, meet Cammie when we meet her father and she doesn't seem very friendly. Cammie intimidates Anna on the first day of the production, automatically giving the readers a sense of who she is.
Quote: "And then, to show her who was the boss..." (Dean 101)
Reaction: My overall reaction, from reading this section, was a little surprised. I was shocked that Zoey Dean would take this route as an author, take the route of making almost clearly visible good guys and bad guys. The readers clearly see that Cammie is the bad guy in the novel, intimidating naive Anna. I noticed that Cammie tries to get the upper hand when dealing with Anna. I also see that the story may become a bit redundant because in the small amount of time that Anna has worked for Cammie's dad, Cammie has mentally abused Anna. This seems like something that may keep repeating because Anna is by herself with nobody to defend. I think of Anna's situation with Cammie as "dog eat dog" because Anna is trying to establish her name in a "dog eat dog world" such as Hollywood.

Blonde Ambition pgs. 45-88

Summary: In chapters 5 through 10, Anna is finally beginning to live on her own without her family. He sister, Susan had recently been checked into rehab, and Anna never used to talk to her parents before, so they are out of the picture as well. With Anna's new job falling into place as an intern on a hit show called Hermosa Beach, she is really started to get her life together. Anna had to remove herself from her parents and her sister to pursue her life as an intern. The only newly found problem that may become a conflict for Anna is her boss's daughter. The readers don't know to much about the boss's daughter, but i think that she may be a significant figure in the novel.
Quote:"I put myself in your more than capable hands" (Dean 44)
Reaction: So far, i can tell that this book has some bildungsroman elements. The readers can see that Anna has to leave her safe place to make something of herself. Anna's safe place is under her parent's watchful eye. At the beginning of the novel, Anna told the readers that she often gets check-ups from her family. As she is on her own, the check-up calls that Anna receives are becoming more and more less frequent than at the beginning. Also, Anna is creating her home away from home, which is her job as a TV intern. The big responsibility that she is gaining is making her grow up a lot more. I think that by the end of the novel, I will notice a change in the way that Anna is being portrayed by Zoey Dean. The responsibility is going to make her change more than any other factor in the novel, like her family or her relationship with the boss's daughter.

Blonde Ambition Pgs. 1-45

Summary: In chapters 1 through 5, the readers find out about Anna Percy's life. The readers discover that Anna likes to live in the moment with her boyfriend, Ben. Also, we discover that Anna' s family, although extremely rich, have a lot of problems. Anna's older sister, Susan has problems with herself, and their family is falling apart. Susan has a bad relationship with her parents because of a recent incident that happened while Susan was in college, and Anna is caught in the middle of their feud. Now Susan has arranged for herself to go to rehab, and the family is supportive of this decision. Also in these chapters, the readers see that Anna has a hard time finding herself. Anna has her eyes set on the type of career she wants, and how she is going to make it to that career, but she doesn't know who she is.
Quote:"But for the first time in her life she looked, she thought, wild and free. Those were two adjectives that never came to anyone's mind in describing her, she was certain."
Reaction: This quote relates to the overall story because the readers find out a little bit of what Anna is like. We, the readers, know that Anna is not a spontaneous person, she likes to plan and analyze the next step she makes. I think that throughout this book, the idea of bildungsroman will be found when Anna identifies who she is. I predict that Anna will leave her safe place, which is living by her parents, to find out who she is. By venturing off on her own, without the eyes of her parents and her sister on her, Anna will do what she wants to find out who she is. Zoey Dean uses 3rd person omniscent POV going through the story, so i know what each person is thinking, which helps me analyze what is going on, especially during Anna's family trouble.

Lucky pgs. 159-232

Summary: In these chapters (11-13), Alice is experiencing a lot of things within her life. So far, Alice had been sexually abused by an African American stranger, around her college dorm, during her freshman year. Along with this, Alice finds out that her mother is pregnant around the same time as her court trial and her older sister can't make it to her court trial because of her college business that she has to attend to. To top everything off, Alice's new roommate at college was raped as well. To leave the place of her rape, just to come back again and find out that her roommate was raped, is ironic. I think that throughout this novel, Alice sebold played with a lot of ironic ideas. At the end of the novel, Alice seemed to be trying to get her life back together; re-inventing herself.
Quote: "Rape would not follow me."(Sebold 232).
Reaction: I like how the Alice played with irony thoughout the story. She used irony on the title, 'Lucky,' which Alice never seemed to be. She also played with irony when Alice returns to her college and her roommate was sexually abused as well. The connection that the quote has with the story is that at the end of the story, Alice seemed to be completely re-inventing herself. Alice did not let the rape control to much of her life, although it often terrified her to think about. She reassured herself that her past would remain her past for as long as it could.

Lucky Pgs. 91-159

Summary: In these chapters (7-11), Alice Sebold is going back to her rape story. Alice takes a minature break from her rape story to let readers digest what they have just read. In these chapters, Alice was continuing exactly for where she left off, which was going through the process of trying to figure out who her rapist was. What Alice goes through these chapters saying is that she doesn't want to be another statistic, another rape victim. The idea of being another one of the rape victims of the world is scary to her. Also, in these chapters, Alice has to identify who her rapist was. For any rape victim, i can understand this being a challenging process, but Alice took it well. I read that she panics about the smallest things that occur in her life, but she was suprisingly calm anout identifying her rapist (132-145). I think by identifying her rapist, Alice had that revelation moment, that this rape situation was always going to be apart of her life.
Quote:"A world of violent crime"(Sebold 145)
Reaction: This quote helps emphasis the overall story of this novel. Alice had to realize that the world is not just an amazing place to live, there are flaws that the world has to offer. The fact that Alice is facing the man that had sexually abused her, is an interesting twist on the story. Along with that twist, i like how there is also a dual narrative voice in the story. Alice uses the term "I later learned...," which expresses to me that she analyzed her situation years after it happened, but before she wrote the book. By Alice thinking about what had happened and analyzing everything in her own mind, the story becomes more realistic.

Lucky Pgs. 62-91

Summary: In Chapters 5 through 7, Alice is still giving her readers that sense of taking a 'break' from her sexual abuse. In the chapters after Alice's rape, she is not bringing it up as much in the story. Because this book is about Alice's rape, i expect to read more about it, but then, i realize that this book is also about her life AFTER the rape as well. The readers see that Alice Sebold was a lot more child-like before her rape and after her rape, Alice seemed to transform more into an adult. She is seeing that her innocence is taken in more ways than just one, (Sebold 62-91).
Quote: "The world was not divided for me then as it is now...There are two styles available: the safe and the not safe"(Sebold 90).
Reaction: I feel that with the above quote, Alice Sebold is letting the readers know that from here on out, nothing is safe to her. In this point in the story, Alice has returned back home to her family; to the place she thought was her home. This is ironic because Alice is returning to the place where she grew up as a child, and I expect her to recieve some form of special treatment after her rape. The people of the town look at her differently, instead of comforting her like I would expect them to. To conclude, Alice has a catchy way of getting and keeping hold of the reader's attention. By introducing the rape at the beginning, Alice was able to get it out of the way, and elaborate on her life at the time.

Lucky Pgs. 35-61

Summary: In the chapters 3 through 5, Alice is basically going back to the time before the rape. She describes her childhood, growing up in Frazer , Pennsylvania. This chapter where she explicitly describes her childhood relates to the overall story because it's defining the simpler times for Alice Sebold. In just these two chapters, Alice describes playing with her dolls and former friend to laying across her bed the night of her rape. Every detail that Alice put into the story, whether it was changing her characters names or not, added more of a personal level to Alice Sebold's memoir.

Quote: " In the yard some distance from the house was a half-charred Raggedy Andy doll." (Sebold 35)

Reaction: After reading these two chapters from Alice Sebold's Lucky, my opinion of her as an overall author has not changed. The touch of detail that Alice added by putting the things she did before she was raped made me want to read more. When i first began reading the book, I felt that Alice rushed into explaining her rape too quickly. The forward was about her rape and then the first and second chapters were about it too. I didn't know whether the story was going anywhere, until Alice introduced the readers to her life before it became complicated. I think that by added her childhood to the story and giving her sexual abuse story a rest for awhile, the story became more enjoyable.

Lucky Pgs. 5-34

Summary: Lucky by Alice sebold, is about a young woman that gets raped. This memoir reflects the life of Alice Sebold, the author of the best-selling novel, The Lovely Bones. In the first section of this memoir, Alice introduces the readers to her freshmen in college lifestyle and relives the tragic night of her rape. The rape took place in a tunnel, near her college campus, around Pennsylvania, and it had a big impact on her life. After her rape, Alice felt different as a person; changing her whole perspective on life, making each page of the memoir more interesting to read. (Sebold, pgs. 5-29).
Quote: "My girlfriends and the resident adviser, who, after all, was only nineteen, tried to take care of me, but I had begun to notice that i was now on the other side of something they could not understand. i didn't understand it myself."(Sebold, Pg. 27)
Reaction: This quotation applies to the overall concept of the story, by putting the main character, Alice on a different page from everyone else. Nobody was able to understand anything that Alice is dealing with because they was not and could not be put in her shoes. Alice already feels like she is on the outside looking in, and by her not understanding it, the feeling is only going to become worst. Alice is a very mature writer, enabling the readers to know exactly how she felt at that point in time. She doesn't just say what she wants the readers to know, she implies, which allows readers to actually think about the things she writes. She has a way of connecting with the readers, making her chapters page turners. Alice doesn't use a lot of metaphors, similes, or alliteration, and I think it's only because she wants her audience to be intrigued, as well as serious. So far, Alice has caught my attention, and i can't wait to read more.