Week 5- Oryx and Crake

This week I started reading the book Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. I read for about two and a half hours and am not really sure I like it. It leaves me so confused that it actually makes me want to keep reading just so i can figure out what's going on. I'm not exactly sure what has happened, but I will try to summarize what I imagine is happening. For some unknown reason this guy Snowman (his real name is Jimmy) is all by himself in the woods. He has no clothing, just a sheet to cover his "manhood." He does not want to Craker kids to see it. The craker kids are some new species of humans. I'm still not quite sure what this species is, but they are said to be the perfect person and they were created by Jimmys friend Crake. Crake is very smart, but he kind of make me mad. Jimmy has flashbacks of when they were younger and when they would play games together Crake always had to win and was always right. He seemed a little annoying to me. This book is full of cursing and sexual references and I don't really like that. Conner said this book was SO good and I just don't get it. I still sort of want to continue reading it because I want to know what is going on, but I may just give up on it. The book is very futuristic in many ways. There are companies in Jimmy's flashbacks that make hybrid animals such as the rakunk (raccoon+skunk). They also have an animal called a pigoon which is like a very big pig. They used this pigoon to grow lungs that could be used for humans. Jimmy's parents both worked at one of these companies for a while then Jimmy's mom quit. She became depressed and eventually left the compound and nobody knew where she went. Jimmy received postcards from an aunt, but it wasn't really an aunt. He assumes they were from his mother. The last part i read was about Jimmy in his little tree platform. He couldn't sleep so he got down in the dark, which was dangerous, to go to his concrete slab to get Scotch. He drank the last of what he had. Then he tried to call Oryx to embody him basically. He wanted her to live through him in way so that she could please him instead of him pleasing himself. It is very WEIRD! Oryx is a girl that i am still confused about but he told the Craker kids a story about her. He said that she layed two eggs. One was full of animals and the other was full pof words. The words hatched first and all the Crakers ate them before the animals could. That is why the animals don't talk. I don't really understand this but it doesn't seem like just a story he was telling the Craker kids, because he said that he couldn't eat rabbits because they were the children of Oryx. That really sums up what I have read so far. I am going to try to read more of this book, but I may end up putting it away because it is so weird and confusing.

Week 4

I finished the book! I read for 2 hours and 15 minutes split between last night and this morning. I left off with Bella, Edward, and Alice on their way to see the Volturi. They make it to the Volturi and Aro asks Edward again if he wanted to join them. He refused, so then they asked Alice. She also refused. He even asked Bella, who also refused. Bella and the Volturu found out that Bella is the one exeption to the vampires special powers. Just as Edward could not read Bella's mind, other vampires also could not use their powers on her. Aro thought it would be great to have someone like her join them. She, of course, would have to be turned into a vampire. Edward would not let this happen and Aro knew this. He told Edward that he could do it himself as long as he meant it when he said he would. Aro would know whether or not Edward meant it using his power. Alice convinced Aro that it would happen by letting him see her thoughts and see that she had a vision of it happening. They were allowed to leave after Alice did that. The rest of the Cullens met Edward, Alice, and Bella at the airport. Rosalie apologized for everything and Bella accepted her apology. They took Bella back to Charlie's and Charlie was very upset. He told Edward he was not allowed in the house. Edward convinced him to let him get Bella in bed then he would leave. After Edward left he snuck in Bella's window. When Bella woke up she thought she was dreaming, but Edward finally convinced her she was not. They talked for a long time about everything. He told her what it was like to be apart from her. Then they talked about the Volturi's decision that she must be changed. He told her that he had a plan and she got upset and wanted to go see the other Cullens. Eward ended up taking her to see them. When she got there she made the family vote whether or not to change her, so she could be a part of their family. Tne votes were in her favor, but Edward convinced her to wait until she graduated. She agreed to that and Carlisle gave her his word that he would change her then. When they got back to Bella's, Edward asked Bella to marry him. He asked her becasue he wanted to be married before she was changed. he also said he would change her himself if she waited longer and married him. She was very skeptical about this marriage thing. Renee doesn't think a person should get married until they are thirty so she knew her mom wouldn't like that. She ended up waking Charlie up, so Edward hid in the closet. Charlie and Bella talked about Edward and how Charlie did not want her to see him. She told him that she was going to see him or else she would move out. Bella was grounded because she left with Alice, but Edward was still allowed over during specific hours. One day when Edward was taking Bella home he knew Charlie was going to be mad at her. Jacob had taken Bella's motorcycle to Charlie's and told him it was hers. As they were pulling up to the house Edward said that Jacob was in the woods and wanted to talk to them. They went there and Jacob reminded Edward about the treaty, and that if the Cullens were to bite a human, it would break the treaty. Bella reacted to this showing Jacob that they were planning on it eventually. Charlie saw Edward's car and started hollering for Bella. They hurried out of the woods to Charlie's, but that is where the book ended. I do not know what Charlie said or did. This book ended strangely. I really wanted to know how much trouble Bella was in. I'm sure I will find out in Eclipse, but I don't think I am going to start reading it right away. I am going to read Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood next.

Week 3

Last week I read Chapters 7-20, which totalled somewhere around six hours of reading. I got addicted to the book and read it any chance I got. So much happened in 13 chapters, that it is so hard to sum it up, but I will do my best... Jacob and Bella continued to hang out everyday and they finally got the bikes finished. When Bella rode hers she got startled by Edward's voice and wrecked and gashed her forehead open. They decided to take a break from the bikes so that Bella wouldn't end up in the hospital everytime she hung out with Jacob. Bella decided she wanted to go hiking to try to find the meadow that Edward had taken her to, so when they weren't riding bikes they were looking for the meadow. Bella invited Jacob to go out with her and some friends to a movie, but it ended up only being Mike, Jacob, and Bella. Mike got sick so they left early. Jacob was burning hot to the touch so Bella tought he might be getting sick too. When Jacob didn't call when he got home, Bella called him and Billy answered and said that Jacob was sick. Bella also got sick that night with the stomach flu. When she was better she called Jacob, but he was still sick. She was told that Jacob had Mono and she wasn't allowed to go over there. Bella decided to go hiking without Jacob to try to find the meadow and ended up running into Laurent. He said that Victoria sent him to scope out the land and that she was going to be disappointed that he killed her instead of her. They talked as he inched towards her and she thought she was going to die. All of a sudden a pack of HUGE wolves appeared and chased Laurent away. Bella later found out that the wolves killed Laurent. Bella still hadn't seen or talked to Jacob, so one day she decided to show up at his house. He was there hanging out with Sam and his "gang." They ended up having a small argument and she left. Later that night Jacob came to her room while she was sleeping and told her he couldn't tell her why he was hanging out with Sam. He said she already knew and that she needed to think back to the tiem he told her legends on the beach. She couldn't think of what he was talking about, so he left and she went to sleep. She had a dream that answered everything. Jacob was a warewolf! She went and talked to him the next day and she was upset because she thought they were killing innocent people. Jacob explained they only killed vampires and that the vampires were the ones killing the people. Jacob described one vampire and Bella knew right away that it was Victoria and that she was after her. This helped Jacob and the other warewolves. One night when Jacob took Bella home he smelled a vampire and knew it was in Bella's house. Bella saw Carlisle's car and insisted on going inside even though if it was Victoria, Jacob could not do anything because of the treaty. It ended up being Alice. Alice cam because she had a vision of Bella jumping off the cliffs and thought she had died. Alice stayed over there for a couple of days. One day Jacob came over and he and Bella were talking when the phone rang. Jacob answered it and said that Charlie was not there and that he was at the funeral. It ended up being Edward and Edward had found out about Alice's vision and wanted to see if Bella was still alive. Jacob's response made him think that Bella really did die and he decided to provoke the Volturi so that he could die too. Bella and Alice left go to Italy to stop Edward. They took a plane and then stole a car, but they made it to Volterra. Alice saw a vision that Edward would reveal himself at noon under the clock tower. Bella had just minutes to find him, but she did. Edward had not yet revealed himself but was still forced to go back to see the Volturi along with Alice and Bella. That is where I left off, and I am sure I missed a lot of information, but it is way too much to include all the details! I only have 3 more chapters and the epilogue left, so i plan on finishing the book this week.

Week 2

This week I read chapters 3-6, for a total of about two hours. A lot happened in these three chapters. Edward decided because of the incident with his family and Bella, that he was not good for Bella. He went and told Bella that he and the other Cullens were leaving town and that he would never see her again. Bella spent the next several months depressed and lifeless. Charlie decided she should go live with her mom, but Bella refused. To make her dad happt she went out with Jessica to a movie, but still constantly thought about Edward. That night she started to walk toward some strange men on motorcycles and she heard Edward's voice warn her not to go. From this point, Bella realized she had to do things that were reckless and stupid to keep Edward in her life. Bella ended up getting two motorcycles for free. They did not run, but she had an idea. She decided to ask Jacob Black to help her fix them. She went to Jacob's house everyday to work on the bikes, but they did it secretly so that Cahrlie and Billy would not find out. They decided that they had to spend at least two nights a week doing homework, rather than working on the bikes. Working with Jacob was something that Bella actually looked forward to. She was "normal" when she was with him. She didn't have to pretend to listen or smile, it just happened. Even when Bella was not with Jacob, she was better than she had been. She was actually talking to her old friends again. She still had nighmares and thought about Edward, especially in her free time, but she was getting better.