Racing in the Rain

Racing in the Rain

Sam Griffith

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The book Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein is about an edgy race car driver, Denny, his family, and most of all, the narrator himself, his dog named Enzo. Denny goes though many life wrecking experiences but manages to stay in control, He does this by being with his loved ones and by exercising his passion.

At one point in the book Denny’s wife catches cancer. As you would expect this is an incredibly horrible time for Denny. He is does his best to survive this tragedy by staying with his dog, and his daughter. Enzo tells of how Denny comforts his daughter but Enzo feels that Denny is comforting himself as well. He feels better when he is with his daughter he feels like his wife is still with him and that there are still loved ones involved in his life. So when his daughter is taken away from him by his in laws he spirals into drunken dazes. Staring into space feeling horrible. The fear of being alone is stressed in this book. At one point Enzo is left at home for a few weeks and ends up hallucinating about demons in Denny’s Daughter’s stuffed animals. This just shows that smaller fears become humongous and unavoidable when you are left by yourself.

The other way Denny eases the pain around him is by indulging in his passion. Race car driving. He says to Enzo that when he is in the drivers seat he forgets about everything else. He just thinks about the race. He is calm and focused and rarely looks back. He is free on the racetrack, free of his problems and fears when he is behind the wheel. He is an expert of racing in the rain, you could a comparison saying that while he was driving his problems are like rain drops, small drops of water that have no impact as Denny speeds around the track.

The book Racing in the Rain tells readers that you will not be able to get though tough times yourself. You will need love ones to stay with when the going gets tough. And if you don’t have that you will need a passion that can make you forget your troubles, and race though the slippery rain covered track like it’s a sunny  summer day.   

Sam Griffith

The Lost Boy

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The Major theme of the book entitled The Lost Boy by Dave Pelzer is that an abuse parent impacts the child for life. It shows the many effects the abuse relationship Dave Pelzer, the author, had with his mother. It explains how Dave always had a dark fear of his mother waiting to punish him. It also shows how after he had been separated from his mother he still felt extremely guilty for things that may or may not have been his fault.

After Dave had been taken from his former family to leave his abusive past behind him he still feared his mother. When he was at the hospital getting his bruises checked out every 5 minutes he would stick his head out the window to check if his mother was there to steal him back. At one point he had nearly gained confidence in himself, but that was before his mother gave him a visit. “I’ll get you back,” She said. Those words haunted Dave even though he knew perfectly well he was safe. He had been brainwashed to think no matter what he did he would end up being severely and harshly punished.

Another long lasting impacts of his mothers abuse, Dave was always overly guilty of things that where unimportant. An example of this when he foster mother happily greats him, saying, “So, how are you feeling today?” He responded fine, then quickly panicked and asked, “Did I do something wrong? Am I in trouble.” He had been brainwashed to believe he was always being a bad boy, always in trouble. And this still affected him while being treated wonderfully by his new foster mother.

            In the book The Lost Boy horrible and depressing story is told. The Dave Pelzer tries to tell the reader that no matter how happy and free you feel, if you had been abused by a parent, you will always feel trapped and abandoned. If you had been brainwashed to always feel as though you were unworthy this feeling will follow you throughout your life.      

Sam Griffith 813

Breathing Underwater

The book Breathing Underwater by Alex Flynn is about a boy who hits his girlfriend, who gets a restraining order, and how he tries to win her back. The book deals with bad characteristics being spread from parents to their children. In this case the traits are passed on to the main character, nick, from his father.

The first negative characteristic passed on is using violence to solve problems. Nick his constantly beat by his father, often not because he has major issue with his son’s behavior but more because he is having problems with other parts of his life and he lets it out on Nick. This is similar to the situation Nick has with his girlfriend. He has so many other troubles (such as his father beating him) That he will become aggressive with his girlfriend just because he has little problems with her like the necklace she is wearing.

Another trait that has been passed on his disrespect towards women. Nick on many accounts calls his girlfriend a, “Bitch,” or, ” Slut,” words that are inexcusably cruel towards women. Nick’s mother left Nick and his father when the boy was only five years old. An inference can be made is that she left because Nick’s father was treating her wrong. This most likely effected Nick’s thoughts towards how he should treat a woman he loves.

 The book Breathing Underwater talks about the effect parents have on their kids. How traits or opinions you present to your child will probably be carried out in your child’s personality. The message the author is giving the reader is to make sure you as a parent are showing good traits and habbits. 

Spanking Shakespeare

Sam Griffith 813

The main character, Shakespeare no not famous poet and playwright but instead your common high school senior with drunk parents, is currently on the hunt to, “get laid.”  It is mentioned throughout the beginning of the book and the book details on how he satisfies the urge to get laid. Sex turns out to be one of the key issues in this book.

This issue first appears when speaking about his experience with masturbation. It explains that at times he fills the need he has for sex with masturbation. It explains an early story of how at camp he would hump the walls of the pool and got a great feeling from it. He was teased for this by older kids and became scared to do something such as this for a long time before in high school it became a well-known goal for all boys at his school to get laid.

The second time this issue reappeared was on page 33 where he created a list of girls he could have sex with. It listed from the least possible to the most possible. This just shows how focused he is on getting laid.  For a quick writing assignment he even wrote a fake article on “Sex preparation class” a comical article about a class similar to SAT training class, This shows that maybe having sex may be more of a focus then getting into college.

Sex is an issue that has followed Shakespeare for all of his life. And in high school his interest in it seems to have sky rocketed. As the book goes on, things start to become more and more revolved around Shakespeare’s sex life.