Summer Reading 2014: Complex Characters

      I will start this by a very brief summary of the story. Shorty is a young boy living in Haiti and basically some major events happen in his life that cause him to join a gang and this ganglife ends up landing him in the hospital with a bullet wound. While he is in the hospital the earth quakes hit and he is trapped in the dark hospital starving, dying. So he begins to reflect on his life. Shorty has a complicated life and these major events in the beginning of the story that cause him to go into the gangs are when he witnesses his father being murdered and his twin sister being kidnapped by an Anti Aristide gang. Shorty having been born and raised in site soley, one of the poorest and most dangerous slums of haiti, turns to the pro Aristide gang in haiti and joins them in an effort to find his sister. The dedication to find his sister is what really drives every decision that young shorty make in the story. Some themes that I believe are appearing through the story are how far are you willing to go for what you want and what is worth doing to get to that goal. My book is structured with pages and chapters?  

Summer Reading 2014: Major Characters

     I chose the book In Darkness by Nick Lake, it is set in the earth quake torn haiti where hospitals have fallen into rubble and street gangs have taken over the area. Some of the major characters in the book are Shorty Marguerite (Shorty’s sister) and Shorty’s father.  Also Toussaint l’Ouverture   takes a lead role in the thoughts of young shorty. The Main conflict in the story is an internal one of shorty, who in the beginning of the story is trapped in a hospital that had fallen during the earthquake in Haiti. Young shorty while in the dark hell hospital begins to look back on his life and try and figure out what led him to that point in his life. For these nostalgic thoughts he turns to someone who died over 200 years ago, Toussaint l’Ouverture.  With Toussaint in mind he reminisces about his life, comparing and contrasting decisions he has made.  If I had to think of one thing to connect this book to it would be a show on HBO called The Wire. Even though the Wire is set in Baltimore and about American gang life, the brutality portayed in the show reminded me of the gut wrenching story of shortys life.