House Rules by Jodi Picoult

              In the book House Rules by Jodi Picoult, the issue of the abilities of people with learning disabilities is raised. In the text, one of the main characters has Aspergers, a high-functioning form of autism. Jacob, I believe, is a brilliantly gifted child. He can memorize all the scripts of the movies he sees, and when he has an obsession, such as dinosaurs or forensics, he studies that obsession so carefully that he becomes an expert at it, surpassing a lot of knowledge that humans could not gather in that amount of time. But this condition also has it's drawbacks. Jacob cannot understand people at all. He interprets what people say very literally, and wants to be accepted so very badly, but doesn't know how. Also, certain things can upset him very greatly, such as the color orange or even the crinkling of paper. Jacob is also slightly OCD; order is extremely important to him. All these things ultimately label Jacob a "retard" and stupid. But I believe Jacob is very talented, but nobody realizes it because of his social awkwardness.
           A reason that I think Jacob is very gifted intellectually because of his skills to become a genius in any subject he wants. For example, in the book, he is very interested in forensics. He is constantly setting up fake crime scenes and he can recite any laws regarding the justice system off the top of his head. At one point in the text, Jacob shows up at an actual crime scene where a hiker was found dead in a snowbank. The police were struggling to identify the cause of death, and Jacob discovered the actual cause of death before the authorities did. Also, he is obsessed with a TV show called Crimebusters, in which he solves all the cases before the "detectives" can. This may not seem like a prodigious feat, but an average human could probably not accomplish that. As well in the book, there are flashbacks to his other obsessions in the past and he just seems to know everything about them. As you can see, Jacob, even though he has Aspergers, is a very talented individual.
        Though Jacob is very intelligent, the drawback of his smartness is his issues with people. People with Aspergers often have trouble reading people, and take things very literally. People would think Jacob was a genius if he wasn't so socially awkward. For example, a casual conversation starter for Jacob would be an outrageous fact about forensics that only experts would seem to know. This causes rejection from his peers and frustration in Jacob. And even though Jacob is 18, he still throws temper tantrums. And these temper tantrums are over very specific things, such as too much of the color orange, or if his schedule is out of order by the tiniest thing. This gives Jacob the label "stupid" and "retard" but only because of his lack of social skills. Yet in actuality, he is a very smart person.
        In conclusion, House Rules by Jodi Picoult makes a very interesting comment on the abilities of people with learning disabilities. Jacob, intellectually, is beyond the average person. Yet socially, he struggles. Only because of his bad interactions with people, Jacob is labeled as a stupid person, when he truly isn't.

Ask Me no Questions by Marina Budhos

In the book Ask me no Questions by Marina Budhos, the author makes you think more deeply on the issue of illegal immigration. In the story, Nadira Hossein lives in a nondescript neighborhood in Queens. They are illegal “aliens” from Bangladesh and they escape in the middle of the night to apply for asylum in Canada. Using expired visas, her father unfortunately is detained. Her mother stays in Canada, waiting for Abba (her father) to get out of jail. Nadira and her sister, Aisha, go back to Queens where they now live at their aunt’s and uncle’s apartment. But when Aisha comes down with some kind of post traumatic stress disorder, Nadira determinedly goes to Vermont, where her mother is. The trial is held, and the judge starts giving illicit accusations about her father, saying he had joined a terrorist group. Nadira realizes that they have the wrong name and clears it. But they still have to go to court to get legal housing. Aisha is still a bit traumatized, but she is okay. The judge grants them legal housing and Nadira describes her feelings for it in this passage: “When the gravel cracks, wood on wood, the air seems to explode with light. Abba turns around and I see he is crying silent tears. But he says nothing”. The book made me think about the conflict on illegal immigration, and now I seem to look at illegal immigration differently.

There are many themes and issues explored in this book: illegal immigration, which Nadira and her family are [illegal immigrants], post traumatic stress, which Aisha has, poverty, and prejudice against Muslims. All of these issues are explored differently, like how Nadira describes Aisha’s post traumatic stress: “After that, something shifts between Aisha and me. It’s like she’s opened the door and wriggled over into her own private world.” Whereas on prejudice against Muslims, She describes it as a thing she doesn’t pay a lot of mind to, but it still haunts her. Aisha’s post traumatic stress, it’s a thing she can’t ignore and she is frightened and disappointed in Aisha. But illegal immigration, the main issue in the book, is explored in depth to the reader. Nadira lives and breathes illegal immigration, and the thought of being deported or being wrongly convicted of being in a jihadist kind of group is everywhere: in her dreams, her school life, and the lies that she always has to tell in order to keep her identity secret. It really made me think differently of illegal immigrants.

In the book, the author (Marina Budhos) tries to make you think more highly of illegal immigrants. She sneaks her opinions in through passages of Nadira’s thoughts: “We heard of hundreds of deported Iranians from California and others from Brooklyn, Texas, upstate New York. We watched the news of the war and saw ourselves as others saw us: dark, flitting shadows, grenades blooming in our fists. Dangerous.” There are many issues in America right now, but she brings us back to the subject of illegal immigration. It is actually a very big issue. The author tries to show us that illegal immigrants are not evil, sadistic people who are associated with terrorism and drugs. They just want a better life for themselves. She also shows that the media exploits illegal immigrants by painting them as bad people. Marina Budhos really made me think more supportively about illegal immigrants.

The book Ask me No Questions by Marina Budhos really deepened my thinking about the issue of illegal immigration. A lot of people are unsure where they stand in the issue of illegal immigration, but the author tries to show that it may seem like illegal immigrants are overpopulating America and taking up all our jobs, but they just want a more prosperous future, because a lot of the time their countries (Bangladesh, in Nadira’s case) are corrupt: “Then one day Naseem disappeared, gone to join the Mukti Bahini, “Freedom Fighters”, who wanted their own nation. Every day my grandmother pressed her forehead against the window gate, praying her eldest son would walk down the dusty street. But it was not to be. The more Grandmother prayed, the worse the news became. They heard about university students shot and professors murdered on their pillows. They heard about Freedom Fighters mowed down in dirt pits, Hindu villages riddled with gunshot.” Marina Budhos is trying to say that illegal immigration is actually a really big issue in America and these people are normal people like you and me. Reading Ask me no Questions really deepened my thinking on the issue of illegal immigration.

In conclusion, there are many issues in the book Ask me no Questions by Marina Budhos, but illegal immigration is the main issue. She goes very deep and personal into the issue, which really makes you think about illegal immigration in a different light, and how the media abuses the issue of illegal immigration. It is a very serious conflict in the United States, and the book Ask me no Questions by Marina Budhos really made me think more deeply about illegal immigration.

It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini

It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini is a really good book about a teenage boy named Craig who suffers from clinical depression. He wants to commit suicide but he stops himself and checks himself into a hospital. He ends up in the adult psychiatric ward. This book has a lot of lessons that are both presented and supported in a good way. This book actually taught me some very important lessons about life. One of the lessons is that you shouldn’t try to live with a problem; you should try to solve it. Another one of the lessons is that you shouldn’t keep your feelings bottled up.

One of the lessons in It’s Kind of a Funny Story is that shouldn’t live with a problem; you should try to solve it. When Craig tried to live with his problem (his depression), it was awful. He threw up almost everything he ate, he could hardly sleep, and his grades were dropping rapidly.  When I first heard how Craig’s life was, I could actually kind of understand why he wanted to commit suicide. Craig just didn’t try to solve his problem, which was one of the reasons why he wanted to commit suicide. If he wasn’t depressed, he obviously would not have contemplated committing suicide. This lesson is presented when one of Craig’s friends, Nia, comes to visit Craig at the hospital. Nia says that she also has depression, and Craig suggested that she should get help for it, because he felt better when he got help for it. The lesson was supported when, at the end of the book, he isn’t depressed anymore. He got better because he tried to solve his problem by checking into the hospital and getting treated for his depression. In the end, his problem was solved, and he started living a much healthier and happier life.

Another one of the many lessons in It’s Kind of a Funny Story is that you shouldn’t keep all of your feelings bottled up. This lesson was presented when Craig told his parents about his depression and the fact that he wanted to kill himself. Craig’s parents said if he told them that he really wanted to kill himself, they could have done something about it. I, myself, did not understand why Craig did not tell his parents that he wanted to commit suicide, because you could tell that he didn’t want to keep feeling what he was feeling. This lesson was supported when Craig started telling people that he wanted to kill himself. Once the truth was out to the world, Craig actually started feeling better. He no longer had to hide the truth from other people. In the beginning of the book, he was trying hard to hide the fact that he was depressed from his friends. When Craig was hanging out with his friends and his friend asked him if he was okay, he shrugged them off. Doing this stressed Craig out, so when he didn’t have to hide anything, he felt less stressed. All in all, the lesson that you shouldn’t bottle up all of your feelings is presented and supported in this book.

In conclusion, It’s Kind of a Funny Story has a lot of good and important lessons. All the lessons in this book are presented and supported clearly. You can tell in this book what the author is trying to tell us: to not bottle up are feelings, and don’t try to live with a problem, try to solve it.