Reading Circle - Reflection 8

Our group read a book called "Under The Ice" by John Gordon. Although I wasn't there because I was sick I have talked to my group about what i've done for the discussion. The story is set in the sub-urbs sometime during winter.

The story starts seemingly normal at first when a friend invites the main character over to his house to hang out, later they both go ice skating at the nearby lake. The friends skate at night so there is an ominous aura being given off. While he is skating he suddenly sees a corpse under the ice he is skating on. Just as he thought the night could not be creepier his friend tells him that he and his father drowned his uncle here. He goes on to explain why he drowned his uncle and later sends the main character home.

Next day they both acted like nothing happened and business went on as usual. One day his friend invited him over again and they went skating. They talked about what happened last time and continued skating. Suddenly his friend's father warned them to go back. They started skating towards the bank but when the moon starts to emerge a crack appears in the ice. The corpse crashes through the ice and grabs the friend. The father skates toward him but alas it is too late and the corpse takes them both into the water. The main character just stands there watching as his friend and his friend's father drown.

I thought the ending was extremely scary, especially because I read that at night. The story seems to be a movie style scary story with a scary twist in the end where the dead takes revenge for the wrong done on him/her. The genre of this book is Horror/Thriller and I think I would only recommend this story to people who are interested in this genre.

Reading Circle - Reflection 7

We read a short story called "The Bear Got Me" by Matthew Licht. It's about an engineer who is sent to a military base in Alaska to maintain and fix their facilities. On the way he spots something moving on the road. Curiosity gets the better of him and he slows down to get a better look. As it got closer he could see a bear. He knew it wasn't an ordinary bear as it continued to chase him. Suddenly a bright light blinds him and he is forced to stop. As two soldiers approach him he visualizes the being torn apart by the bear. The vision quickly subsides and when he tells them his story they dismiss it as him having too much to drink.

The story was bizarre and I couldn't tell if he was hallucinating or not, there was no background story about the character and it was left on a cliffhanger. I guess that he was actually hallucinating because he couldn't get much sleep driving to the base. The genre of the story is a suspense-thriller as the bear did not stop chasing him and disappeared at the last second.

As the summariser I found it really difficult to summarise this story as the structure of it made it confusing. It was a challenge but I managed to do it. Next time as a summariser I would like to read another challenging book.

Reading Circle - Reflection 6

We discussed the last two chapters of animal farm. In this chapter the animals have started rebuilding the windmill after the celebration. Boxer refused to stop working every day and it led to him injuring his lung. Napoleon assured the animals that they were taking Boxer to the vet while in reality they sent him to be killed. It is found out that Napoleon sold Boxer to the horse slaughterer so he could buy more whiskey. In the end Animal Farm was renamed to Manor Farm and what was left of the farm was a shadow of it's former self. 

We talked about if a second rebellion were to happen would the state of the farm become better or worse and we also talked about the future of the farm. I think that the book talks about the corruption of leaders and also how greed can effect a successful revolution.

Reading Circle - Reflection 5

As we are close to finishing Animal Farm one thing I noticed the past few weeks was how similarly the events of the book mirror the events of world war 2. We discussed about Napoleon and his use of propaganda (squealer) to brainwash the animals in the farm.

As the quote finder I have pointed out in a quote how people with power can bend laws to suit their purposes.