Go Ask Alice; First Thoughts, Overview, Summary.

Go Ask Alice is a fairly odd and interesting book to read. The way its set up is creative and quite understanding. The book is written as a anonymous diary. A author is a young girl who is strongly self conscience and she feels she is an outcast. She seems to have an average life just with average school stress. It's just the way she handles and interprets the stress and conflicts that pop up in her life. Later the girl is turned down by a boy that she loves. He asks her on a date and stands her up, she takes this seriously and believes she has lost the love of her life. The conflicts she experiences seem average and it just feels like she can't cope with stress or handle anything with conflict. She has multiple personalities and can be considered fake or lying to her self and others to make her self feel good. The girl resorts to drugs, diet, over eating, depression, and emotional/physical pain. She wants change and is glad she has to move. She tells her self things she needs to improve and it seems like she breaks her self promises and goes to negative peer pressure. She is lost in a life or ridicule and consistent conflict. I believe she is a too self conscience and needs to think of the good things in life, takes the easy way out and drowns in self pity. She likes to handle things the wrong way, she is a strong drug abuser and started out quite extreme with the drugs. He first drug used was LSD.

Final Chapter 21

First of all I am going to state my opinions about the final chapter, 21 and then my opinion of the whole book. I believe chapter 21 is a joyful, and exciting, it helps us understand his thoughts of what his new life is like also all of the differences and new technologies that had come into his life. My over all opinion of this book is amazing. This book truly brings out every emotion and paints a mental picture within every page read in the book. Ishmaels book has strongly changed my life in many ways. It’s made me think of how far a person can go, how we can all change, what we can lose, how we make our choices, and how we shouldn’t take things for granted. Chapter 21 starts off at the New York City Airport. There is only a few descriptions which Ishmael has ever heard about NYC is on his rap cassettes, and is anxious to see if it’s as dangerous as they say. Ishmael gets out to the street and is practically fearless, to Ishmael the dangerous streets are comparable to a preschool playground considering what he has seen or experienced. Ishmael loves the city life; all of the buildings and lights fascinate him. It’s foreign to him and he still does not understand most things that we are used to. Such as all of our technology, most of this is confusing for Ishmael. One other thing that Ishmael is new to is the extremely low temperatures and snow. He has never seen snow and he’s never been in this cold of weather either. Everything must be different for him, it’s most likely nothing like he expected or at least what I think he would expect. This was a big and positive change for Ishmael, because now he is in civilization and there is no way he is going back to the terrible conditions he suffered when he lived in Africa. I’m glad that Ishmael has ended up in a safe environment that he can handle with ease. This book was and still is amazing; it’s definitely a book I’d highly recommend to any type of reader. Since the book is over and done with, I’ll look forward to seeing Ishmael Beah speak live in person.

Chapters 19 through 20

After reading chapters 19 through 20 my mind and emotions are filled with more hope, although hope I feel hope I also feel that its depressing because he is still reflecting on his past and its still so sad to picture what he went through and what he is feeling now. In my opinion Ishmael is a true soldier, not a violent soldier but more of a personal warrior. He’s a soldier because he is fighting emotional and physical pain also preventing future conflict. Ishmael has to face the fact that he’s alone and has no family, he tells Esther this. Esther comforts Ishmael and tells him that he can think of her as his own sister. The fact that she offered made Ishmael realize he is loved, people do care about him. Although he likes that she told him that, Ishmael remembers and old friend that resembles Esther. He says they are very similar in many ways. The childhood friend Ishmael remembers would laugh with him whenever they would be around each other. Her name is Abigail; she was one of Ishmaels best friends back then. It’s sad that Ishmael lost her and will not see her again but I’m glad that he has someone to relate to her great qualities. Later on Ishmael is offered to perform at a talent show for representatives, agents and other visitors. He decides to read a few passages from Shakespeare, and a rap performance. Ishmael ends up finding a family to live with. It’s his loving and caring Uncle. His uncle accepts him into his family with no hesitation, he feeds Ishmael and gives him support and shelter. Ishmael is happy to have an Uncle and many cousins. I’m happy that Ishmael has family left that cares for him, and I also think that its good for himself to stay there so he can start to mold into a better person and finally get all of the war out of him.

Chapters 17 through 18

Chapters 17 through 18 seem to be more relieving and happy. Ishmael’s personality starts to change from bad to good. In chapter 17 Ishmael starts to spill about his emotions, past experiences and what he feels now. Its sad reflecting what Ishmael has suffered and been through. Beah has been through more than post people will ever experience. A nurse Esther got a hold of Beah and she tells him to visit the hospital for a checkup whenever he feels like. Esther seems very nice and kind, especially to Ishmael. Esther buys him rap cassettes and Ishmael feels more comfortable and the music brings back good memories of his best friends and brother. She also listens to every thing Ishmael has to say, she helps him and is his friend. Before the Esther and Ishmael became friends, Ishmael took her offer into consideration and decided to go to the hospital. Ishmael going to the hospital truly sparked their friendship and relationship. Ishmael tells Esther all about the war and the previous life he lived before becoming a soldier. These chapters are rough to read because Ishmael also has flashbacks and dreams. He has memories of friends and family, it’s so heartbreaking to know that they are gone. Ishmael keeps strong but emotionally he must be torn completely apart. From his previous experiences it will take time for Ishmael to repair mentally and physically. It’s so sad because he is around my age and I imagined myself going through what he has, and I honestly can’t imagine surviving emotionally. I don’t think I’d be physically hurt because physical pain can be repaired and it wont last forever, unlike emotional memories and pain because you can always recall them, and rarely ever repair one hundred percent from emotional pain

Chapters 15 through 16

Chapters 15 through 16 are full of happiness and how the boys end up being reluctant. The chapters start to get better when UNICEF comes and helps the young soldiers escape fighting the war. To the young soldiers including Ishmael this wasn’t a pleasant thought of being taken out. Its sad to see that the boys are so brainwashed and sucked into this war that they believe its what they want to do all of their lives and feel its almost as if it were there family. It seems as if Ishmael had forgotten about his old lifestyle and memories of the past. Its like he didn’t even have a family of friends or a normal boys average life, it’s as if he had been born into it and he wasn’t going to leave it. This was all from the brain washing after years of his war life-style; it was the drugs, blood, and hate which overtime transformed Ishmael into this monster. I am extremely happy that UNICEF stepped in to help rescue the boys. This gave me hope for the future of Ishmael’s life and he could finally start to become the boy he once was. UNICEF kept the boys in a camp, and gave them food and necessary supplies. It starts to get graphic once a conflict between the boy’s outbreaks into a fight, some boys have weapons and it’s obvious the boys still have the war attitude and personality present in their selves. After the fight UNICEF puts the boys into separate areas in facilities to keep fights and other conflict from starting. I am glad that the boys are in different facilities and soon there could be positive change among them and they could start to be the people they were before.

Choice Reading

I believe choice books are ideally wonderful. They help bring different choices and thoughts to different minds. It’s a great opertunity for all of our peers to bring different choices of books and spread our horizons. Reading different pieces of literature could help students that don’t usually read that specific kind of book, see what its about and truly not judge a book by its cover. Although it may or may not be an enjoyable book to the students who read it, it can help give us ideas of others styles and favorites of reading.

Chapters 13-14

Chapters thirteen through fourteen are showing the strongest change in Ishmael Beah, because Ishmael is fighting in an army, killing innocent people and going against what he believed and seems to be leaving everything in his past. The fact that this happened and is still happening to children in Africa is sickening. To see how much an innocent little boy has changed due to severe depression, loss of hope, drugs, and brainwashing. It's extremely disturbing that Ishmael is doing all of this because you wouldn’t expect him to join an army, unless if he was forced to. He also wouldn't ever want to be like the people who have killed his friends and family. All the soldiers tell Ishmael is to get revenge on others, take your anger out on them, and also men telling him that he will get used to it and it will start to become a custom of his everyday life. It's hard to believe that Ishmael had subsided to this and also very heart breaking. Although Ishmael is making all of these bad decisions, I can't say it's all him and it's his fault. He's still a boy, he is more vulnerable to peer pressure, he's running on no sleep, also drugs take a large role in it. With all of these mental and physical conflicts, Ishmael is not making the choices he normally would in the right state of mind. This is very sad because it’s showing how much evil exists in this world today.