The Chosen One....Does this text contain relevance for a modern audience, or is it dated?

 In the novel The Chosen One, Kyra our lead character finds out she at the young age of thirteen has been chosen by the Prophet to marry her Sixty something uncle whom already has six wives of his own. When the Prophet approaches Kyra and tells her of his vision. Involving Kyra being saved for her uncle, which is obviously bad news, she automatically becomes distraught. Kyra immediately looks to her father for help but even in his best attempt to modification the Prophets mind nothing seems to budge Kyra’s fate. I personally feel the text in The Chosen One is for a modern audience. Even still today there are polygamist sects and in the past we have seen on the news male members of certain polygamist sects being arrested for abuse, for marrying young underage girls, etc. I highly doubt any of these young girls are enthusiastic about being married off and having children with old men of the polygamist sects.  A few years ago there was even a bust in a polygamist sect in Eldorado, Texas where there was a reported call from a girl reporting abuse; also that she had been married off and had a baby at the age of fifteen. According to Texas laws children under the age of 16 can’t be married even with parental consent.

What is the strangest part of the text in the novel The Chosen One?

In the novel The Chosen One, the strangest part of the text to me is the whole paligamist side to this story. I understand how the children of this story would follow the orders of the Prophet because they were raised in a sheltered community where that is all they were taught to believe in.  As it states in the novel the Prophet resently decided to forbid any members of the community to go past the fence lines so that means in the past the older members of the community were allowed outside to the real world. I don’t understand after experencing how the real world is that older community members would want to bring up their children in surroundings like this. Where their young teenage daughters are forced by the Prophet to marry older men in there 50’s, 60’s and so on and then be expected to have babies shortly after while taking on the role as a wife  at such a young age.

From what I have read so far this is all happening to the main character Kyra. Kyra is only 13 years old and she has been chosen by the Prophet to marry her 60 something year old UNCLE. Yeah that’s right as if it wasn’t bad enough she was getting forced to marry an old man now it is incest too and what makes it even worse is no one can help Kyra from her fate. Of course Kyras’ father tries to alter her fate by talking to the Prophet himself but nothing seemes to adjust the Prophets mind.

Free Choice….The Chosen One

For my second novel in Reading 104 I chose the book The Chosen One. So far from reading the back of the book haha I have learned the novel is about a girl named Kyra who is thirteen years old and has grown up in an isolated polygamist community. Since Kyra lives in an isolated community she has never questioned the fact that her father has three wives and that she has twenty brothers and sisters. But when Kyra finds out that the Prophet orders Kyra to marry her sixty year old uncle who already has six wives of his own.

For some reason this book seems interesting to me. I think it’s because I can’t understand why anyone would want to be a polygamist except maybe for the guys because they get to mess around with a bunch of different women and it’s considered ok. I don’t know how it doesn’t bother women in polygamist communities to have to share their husbands with several other women and then have to live in the same house with the other wives and their children. I could understand how if they were raised into a polygamist community that’s probably all they know but if they received the option to have a monogamous or a polygamist relationship why choose to be a polygamist. Recently there has been a new show on TLC called The Sister Wives that follows a polygamist family where the husband has four wives and a bunch of kids. So if you are curious about polygamists check out Sister Wives on TLC it’s very interesting.  

Free Responce.... Thirteen Reasons Why

Reading this book Thirteen Reasons Why makes me think a lot about my time throughout high school. I went to a fairly small high school where only a little over 200 kids attended and most of the time everyone knew everyone because of the most part we all grew up together. I mean my school was like every other school, we had fights, bulling and what not but nothing to the extent that happened to Hannah Baker or even a lot of the stuff you see on TV. I think that all had to do with the size of the school, with less student in the school  it made us get to know each other more. Just thinking of the possibility of something like that could have happened to someone who I have had grown up with is a little frightening. I mean how would one even pick up the signs that something is wrong with an individual? I mean it must not be that easy to pick up on because no one even had an idea that something was wrong with Hannah. With Phoebe Prince people were stunned that it went so far or that she would take it to that extreme where she would take her own life to make her pain end. I think this book is a good eye opener for kids. It shows how things that you do to others that you might consider as harmless fun but to the victim of bully it could be construed as harsh or painful.

Thirteen Reasons Why….. What emotions did the text stir up within me?

The emotions I received after reading the text in the book were two things. One of them was sadness. I mean you would have to be a cold heartless person to not feel a little sadness for what happened to poor Hannah Baker. Apparently Hannah felt she had only one way out of all the gossip and bullying that was bestowed upon her. Hannah felt the only way to stop all the pain inside her and finally give herself peace was to pop some pills and end her life.

The second emotion I received while reading was anger. From what I’ve read so far the things that happened to Hannah haven’t been that bad. I mean, I bet there are thousands of people out there in the world now that are having the same or similar situations that Hannah has had to deal with. From what I’ve read I don’t think Hannah has owned up to any of this. Some of the things that have happened she put herself into those situations. Like for instance with the peeping tom who we found out was Tyler. Hannah could have called the police letting them know someone was trespassing in her yard and was also peeping at her. She also made it worse by playing into the situation by giving another girl massages while he was outside her window when she was well aware he was taking pictures of them. Hannah did this quite a bit through this story when, if she would have thought things through more, she could have protected herself from rejection or what not. And to top it off she places blame on these thirteen people who are going to have to deal with this the rest of their lives. I mean if it was so bad she couldn’t take it why would you want others to feel that way.

Speak

The novel Speak was written by Laurie Halse Anderson and published in 1999. Speak is about a girl named Melinda Sordino who becomes the outcast of her high school entering her freshman year. Melinda is basically shunned from everyone she used to call friends because of an incident that happened to her at a high school party over the summer resulting in her calling the police for help. After this incident Melinda becomes depressed and with no friends to vent to it just makes her situation worse causing her to want to hide from the world and sleep. The only thing throughout this story that keeps Melinda sane is her interest in art. Her art teacher Mr. Freeman understands Melinda’s pain and teaches her how to channel her pain into her art work.    

I feel like this book relates to modern teens today. It shows the struggles that teens face to fit into cliques in high school. Every two minutes someone in the United States is sexually assaulted so by this statistic you see it happens to a lot of people. I feel this book shows you the effects of the after math it has on people emotionally and physically. Like Melinda a lot of people go through depression. They tend to blame themselves for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. They usually keep the sexual assault to themselves hiding it from others because there ashamed or embarrassed from what has happened to them.     

Thirteen Reasons Why.....Does this text contain relevance for a modern audience, or is it dated?

In the novel Th1rteen R3asons by Jay Asher. I have learned so far that this novel is about a girl named Hannah Baker who commits suicide but before she does that she makes tapes of her voice telling thirteen unlucky people how they played a role in her death. These thirteen people must listen to all these tapes, rewind them back and send them on to the next person on the list but if anyone fails to send the tapes on then somehow these tapes will get released into the public’s hands.

               

I feel this novels text contains relevance for a modern audience because it shows the depression a young teen named Hannah Baker feels. Her depression caused by those who were closest to her or who went to her school ultimately causing the reason for her death. Even today we see stories like this on the news how young teens are being bullies by their peers causing them to make rash decisions to make their pain stop.  An example of this would be Phoebe Prince who happened to be a new student at South Hadley High School in Massachusetts who was also mercilessly tormented by her peers causing her to go home after school on January 14 and hang herself from a stairway in her home. This novel and these stories on the news show you this is a real thing that happens to real people every day. That there are people who commit suicide to escape the troubles or torment placed on them by others.