Princess A True Story of Life Behind the Veil of Saudi Arabia- Text to Society

In my memoir Princess A True Story of Life Behind the Veil of Saudi Arabia I have realized how the story shows a lot of the difficulty in standing up for a belief. As many of you know, women have very little rights in Saudi Arabia and are always controlled by men. The main character, Sultana believes that women's laws in Saudi Arabia must be changed. However with men controlling her life she feels like she can sometimes not share her belief, for she can be greatly punished. For example, when Sultana is a young girl her brother steals her apple. Sultana was not happy about her brothers decision so she takes the apple from him. Ali, her brother, is very upset and tells on her. While her father hears the story, a brave Sultana tells him that Ali stole it from her so she took it back. Her father did not think that was a good excuse so she was punished. On page 26 in my book it quotes, "As punishment, Ali was given all of my toys. To teach me that men were my masters, my father decreed that Ali would have the exclusive right to fill my plates at mealtimes." This shows how standing up for her beliefs led to a bad ending which shows how it can be a challenge to stand up for what we believe is right.

I will give you a summary of my book. Sultana is a princess of Saudi Arabia's royal family. Now, you would think that she would have a lot of freedom in her country. Well, you thought wrong. For this princess her life is controlled by her father, brother, and husband. She has to cover her face and body with thick fabric. There fathers also pick the daughters husbands even if they are twice the women's age. Through out my book Sultana questions why her country doesn't allow equal rights. However she sometimes feels like she can't stand up for her beliefs because she could get punished. Even though Sultana experiences a lot of physical and emotional pain, she still keeps her beliefs and will share them when she feels like it's necessary.

This story can relate a lot with society. Recently at the University of California in Berkeley, Bill Maher was invited to speak. However, Muslims at the school are not fans of his anti-Muslim comments. They also believe he is one of the reasons Muslims are always judged and assumed to be terrorists. So, some students started a petition to not let Maher speak at their university. This can show how standing up for beliefs can be hard. As you can imagine, many people of the university are fans of him and are interested in what he has to say. These young students stood up for themselves to save them from being judged and going through the pain of being made fun of. You can probably guess that people weren't nice to them which made it a lot more of a struggle. So as you can see, even in America it is hard to stand up for your beliefs.

Here is my news article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/11/03/muslim-students-bill-maher_n_6093598.html?ir=Religion

The Color of Water: Character Prompts

The characters in the book The Color of Water can be related to other characters I have seen through books and movies. For example, James reminds me of Ariel in the movie Footloose. I feel like they dealt with death in the same way. When Ariel's brother dies in a car crash dancing is banned in the small town she lives in. After the loss of her loved one, Ariel goes down a bad path and begins to make bad choices with out her parents knowing. James in The Color of Water  seems to go down the same path. James' step father passes away when he is a teenager, just like Ariel. His step father was like a father to him so it was a very tough period in his life. James also starts to make unwise choices because he thought it was helping him forget about the loss. I think Ariel thinking the same thing as James. His mother would sometimes find out about what he was doing but she didn't know everything. I believe both characters made the wrong choice; and I believe James now realizes that just like Ariel did later in the movie.

I can compare Ruth to people I know in real life. Unlike James, Ruth takes a better path by doing things that reminded her of her husband after he passed away. She rides a bicycle he gave her as a gift and she goes to church since they would go together. This was her way of mourning and it seems like a healthy way to go. I have friends that lost a family member at a young age and I believe they do similar things to Ruth. Their loved one reminds them of nature and they used to all go on fun nature trips as a family. To this day, the family still goes camping and they pray about her and bring her sprit with them. She also loved smiling and believed it could help solve problems. Currently, I hear this family always talking about always wearing your smile and how it will always be your best feature. You can also notice how that family always smiles even though they have lost an amazing person in their life. So, just like Ruth, this family does things that remind them of their loved one as a way of mourning and remembering their loved one.


http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=16348&picture=old-bicycle&large=1

An Abundance of Katherines: An Important Line

On the back cover of An Abundance of Katherine's, it tells us that Colin is going to prove that there is a theory to discover the out come of any relationship. I recently just got to the part in the book where Colin thinks of the theory. He recently just remembered the breakup with the nineteenth Katherine and is thinking about what happened and why the relationship didn't work. After taking many things into consideration, he believes he has the answer. He makes a graph on the happiness with the relationships. He now believes that love can be graphed. A quote from the book is when Colin tells Hassan about what his belief is. It quotes, "Right. Because relationships are so predictable, right? Well, I'm finding a way to predict them. Take any two people, and even if they've never met each other, the formula will show who's going to break up with whom if they ever date, and approximately how long the relationship will last.
I haven't gotten very far in my book from after my quote, but I believe this will be very important later on. I believe Collin will meet many people on his journey and he will pair them up with another person.He will then predict how their relationship will go. Then he will compare his hypothesis to his test. I think he will be right most of the time but will eventually make a mistake. I think his mistake will frustrate him and will add conflict to the story.

An Abundance of Katherine's: Setting

I recently just started reading the book, An Abundance Of Katherines by John Green. The book so far is about a boy named Colin who is dumped by his girlfriend named Katherine. So, as of now Colin has been dumped by nineteen times, and all of the girls names were Katherine. So, Colin decides to go on a road trip with his best friend, Hassan to make himself feel better from his tragedy. He always tries to forget about Katherine but she is always on his mind. He is hoping he will forget about Katherine during this road trip.

  The setting first takes place in Chicago, where Colin lives with his parents. Later on the book takes place on the road when Colin is on his road trip. The landscape changes as Colin and Hassan travel further down south. They are used to very little landscape and a large city. But now they are surrounded by the country landscape of the south.  There are many times when Colin describes what it looked and felt like as he was driving. One part describes when he is in Tennessee. The book quotes, "The wind through the open windows dried their sweat without actually cooling them much, and Colin was wondering how could they get to a place with air-conditioning when he noticed a hand painted billboard towering above a field of cotton or corn or soybeans or something." (Green 27) This gives you an image of what it looks like on the road in the country. I can imagine what the road looks like because there are many highways like this close to were we live.