Micah's English Blog

Chapter 13 pgs. 291-313

The chapter starts with El and Orion surviving the deadly flame that was passing through the halls. I was disappointed because I thought it would be an intense seen like having to use spells to fight against the flame or an epic chase scene. But the original spell to protect them worked and they could move on.

Another big plot event that took place was Orion making a move on El and asking her out. She wants to just remain friends with him and he is ok with that. Then at the end of the book El receives a letter from her mom which ends with, “and keep far away from Orion Lake”. This was funny to me because she just promised that they could remain friends after rejecting him. But it is safe to say Orion’s feelings after getting rejected were similar to mine at the end of the book, disappointed.

I say I was disappointed with the end of the book because my previous section felt like it might be leading up to a super exciting ending. I thought more depth would be added to the opening scene of this chapter but it was just pretty bland. I was also expecting possibly a lot of action going to end the end of the book with possibly even a cliff hanger because I know this book is the first of its series. Overall, I thought it was an ok book with some good action parts but to me, it felt like a lot of filler conversations and extra details that may not be necessary. But I could definitely see how someone could really enjoy this book if they happen to be a really big fan of the fantasy genre or a fan of the author, Naomi Novik. Final rating 5.5/10.

Chapters 11-12 pgs. 228-290

El and some of her friends need to fix a barrier that has been opened up. This barrier allows for monsters to make their way into the school. While they are fixing it, a group of senior students arrive to try and mess it up. They want monsters to be able to kill students from all of the other classes in the school. Orion begins fighting back at them. El could have killed them all because she has a killing power. But once again, she shows her ability to stray from the temptation of killing others. This showed the theme of fighting off temptation for doing wrong to do what is morally right.

Chapter 12 was my favorite chapter yet. I started out skeptical of it because they were tasked with yet another thing to fix in the school which I feel like has been happening for a lot of the book. They need to cleanse the graduation hall of monsters so the seniors can safely graduate. This required a team of volunteers and each volunteer was offered a spot a higher level school.

Once they fight off some monsters, the full cleanse begins. This sends a deadly fire throughout the halls killing anything in its path. El and Orion are running up the stairs trying to get away from the flame. Orion sees it coming and thinks they won’t make it out in time. Because of this he tries to kiss El. This part was the funniest part of the whole book as she knees him in the stomach and then casts a spell to try and block the fire. But that’s where the chapter ends off…

I was glad to finally get to read an action packed section after many underwhelming portions of this book. The ending of chapter 12 set up for a great ending to the book in chapter 13 which is my last section. So far I wouldn’t rate the book very highly, but if the ending is good than I may end up liking the book more than I thought.

Chapters 9-10 pgs. 181-228

El is offered a spot at the enclave. This would be a very good opportunity for to be among the highest wizards. But she feels like she can’t accept it because of the injustice that surrounds it. People who are not a part of the enclave are discriminated against by the others who are. It’s an awful power abuse by the enclave kids. This reminded me of some of the social class systems that I have learned about in world history class. Another problem is that many of the people who don’t make it into the enclave end up dying so she is facing a very critical decision.

The next chapter in this section wasn’t as good. It included a lot of extra details and dialogue that for the most part didn’t greatly contribute to the story. Something that is revealed throughout this chapter and their conversations is how she is opening up more to her friends and trusting them more. Throughout the story El has been pretty reserved and careful about what she tells to others.

Overall, there was not a lot to unpack in this section. But there was some good character development for El with her decision to not join the enclave. I hope this is just leading up to some very action packed final chapters coming up!

Chapter 7-8 pgs. 135-180

In this section, El finds her true potential. She has the ability to become very powerful. But she has the maturity to realize that she may be tempted to abuse the power and become very dangerous and possibly deadly towards other people. This showed a big theme of being powerful can be beneficial or tragic depending on how it is handled. This theme reminded me of the quote from spider man which you can see here.

Throughout the book, other students are suspicious of El. They believe she is evil and wants to kill everyone else. Once again, someone tries killing her and she knows who, but if she tries to get revenge, everyone will believe that she is evil. She chose to remain peaceful even though she was very upset. This was another example where the theme is shown and she has to control herself and her power in order to not be overtaken by the desire for power.

The author’s writing style is interesting. It feels very complicated at some points but other points it is good. When the story is discussing details specific to the school and other wizard activities it can be very confusing trying to figure out the meanings of words that are made up for this alternate world. But when it’s just El and her thoughts, I am able to get a decent understanding of the story and what she is thinking.

Chapters 5-6 pgs. 83-134

Chapter 5 includes a lot dialogue between El and the other kids at the school. Also a lot of El’s thought process on how to go about life at school. She is torn between trying to be distant or using trying to get in with the kids of higher status to possibly move up to a better school. She also is struggling with figuring out who exactly is trustworthy and who is not. She continues to hang around Orion who has been another crucial character in this story. There seems to be at least some trust building between the two.

El has started to deal with some paranoia. Her talking mirror keeps telling her that she is going to get killed. It is scaring El very much. Her friends are trying to tell her that the mirror is just cursed and that she isn’t going to die. But she still struggles to shake the fear and focus on her education. This part definitely reminds me of Snow White and the “mirror mirror on the wall”.

Chapter was a very exciting chapter. By far my favorite in the book so far. El makes a decision that I will discuss in a bit that revealed to me a lot more about who she is as a person. The action starts at the library where she goes to study. She chose to study alone and not with Orion and some other students. Orion and the others are getting attacked by some monsters. They are struggling and El notices. But then she sees another monster. It is an even stronger monster. Then it is revealed that it is the type of monster that killed El’s dad. El could go help Orion and gain a lot of credibility for getting into a better wizard school called the Enclave. El decides to go after the stronger monster where nobody will see and find out that she defeated it.

I feel like that revealed a lot about El because she could’ve gone and helped the group and therefore gained a lot of status. But she chose to kill the other monster to avenge her late father. I thought this showed unselfishness in her. I thought for sure she would go the other way because Orion this entire book has been saving her and others to gain the creditability. I thought she felt the need to get some props herself but she didn’t and I like the way her character is starting to play out. It makes me excited to keep reading this book!

One thing I am struggling with in this book is the language. Something common across many fantasy books in the use of made up words that mean different things. For example in this book the author uses the word “mana” which is the energy the wizards use to cast spells. I have had to reread many parts and try and use context to make sense of some of the terminology. Other than that and some slow moving parts in the book, I have not complaints so far.

Chapter 3-4 pgs. 40-82

The previous section left off with El and Orion working together and seemingly leading towards a friendship between them. But in this section the vibe kind of changes between them. It starts out with Orion constantly following El and walking her to class. Other people at the school notice this begin to suspect that something romantic is happening between the two. But we learn that Orion is very suspicious of El and thinks she is going to kill someone and that is why he won’t leave her side. It is also revealed in the 3’rd chapter that the school does not have teachers. Students instead kind of teach themselves through independent studies. It makes me wonder if it changes much on how students act without the presence of authority figures being present constantly.

The end of the chapter features the most exciting part of the story so far. El is lying in her dorm about to go to sleep when she hears a knock and the door. She assumed it was Orion since he’d been following her around all day anyway. She uses a spell to open the door so she doesn’t have to get up. Turns out, it was another fellow student Jack who had been briefly mentioned earlier in the book but not much has been told about him. But suddenly he approaches El and stabs her with a knife and runs away. This was pretty shocking to me because I hadn’t heard much of any feud or disagreements between the two. It does not appear that any motives for the attack have been revealed yet. I hope the author come back to this part later in the book because it is leaving me pretty confused why it happened.

Orion, in predictable fashion, shows up at the perfect time and kills Jack as he tries to flee El’s dorm. He goes in the check on El. She asks him to grab a special bandage. It’s from El’s mom which then starts a conversation that reveals her mom is a famous healer. She instantly regrets getting into this conversation because she likes to keep that fact on the low. Orion stays the night with El to protect her while she heals. But because of all the excess energy that having two people in a room brings, more monsters are attracted during the night. Orion has to constantly fight monsters throughout the night.

The two chapters I read for this section I thought were okay. They didn’t have much action other than the end of chapter 3. I kinda felt that a lot of the content in these chapters were fillers. It was lots of detail and dialougue that aided to the story some but not a whole lot.

Section 1 pg. 3-39 Chapters 1 & 2

The book starts out by introducing two characters of the book. I assume they will be focus of the story. It is written from the viewpoint of El. The other big character who she will have some interaction throughout the beginning of the book is named Orion Lake. They attend a wizard school called the Scholomance. The school was made form wizards from the United Kingdom. But the actual school itself is in a void outside of the actualy world. The dorms of the school surround the classrooms and will go down each year so every year’s graduating class will live at the bottom floor.

The first encounter between El and Orion in the story begins at El’s dorm when Orion chases a soul-eater into her room and kills it leaving a huge mess from the soul-eater’s insides all over her room. Now she has to search for a cleaning spell which takes a long time. She was very upset with him because of not only the mess, but of how he acts. She always sees him saving people from soul-eater’s and other dangerous critters and he gets much praise from others for him saving them. She is jealous because she wants to prove her worth and boost her reputation too but Orion is always there to save the day so everyone at the school thinks he is an amazing person.

Now El has to fix her door as well. She needs to go to the basement of the school to the tool shed to get what she needs. It is dangerous to go alone because down in the basement live the maleficaria which are dangerous wizards at the school who will try to harm anyone they see. She surprisingly ends up accepting Orion’s offer for help. I was confused why she would want him to help her. My original thought was that Orion would put El in danger so he could save her life and once again boost his ego and repuation. But then my guess was that the opposite may end up happening. So that way she could try and take some of his repuation. They talk over the incident earlier and Orion tries to explain why he killed the monster and claims it had nothing to do with how it made him look, it was just to gain energy from the monster which the wizards need to cast spells. They end up working very well together in retrieving the supplies that El needs for the door. Orion fought off monsters while El got what she needed.

This instance completely changed my perspective on the dynamic between El and Orion. At first I thought a bitter rivalry seemed to be brewing. El was jealous of his popularity and success. Orion seemed to be manipulative in how he always was trying to boost his ego. But now they had worked well together and seem like they could become very powerful wizards together if their relationship continues how it was going during the second chapter. I am very excited to see how the author develops the characters of El and Orion as I read further into the book. I am also curious of where the story will go and if the action will get ramped up soon. Overall the book looks to be promising and I can’t wait to read further.

The book that I am going to read this quarter is A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik. I chose this book because it was a recommendation made by Mrs. C based on the last book that I enjoyed reading which was Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling. I am not reading the book with anyone else. I am looking forward to reading what looks to be a very interesting book. I have enjoyed the very few fantasy books that I have read in the past. I am apprehensive about reading it because I struggle reading books with lots of extra details outside of the main plot and I do not know if this book will be like that. I want to stick to the schedule that I make so I do not fall behind. This will help me be successful on the assignment.

Hatred is shown in The Crucible when Proctor is telling the court of his affair. On page 111 he calls Abigail a “harlot” to try and expose her.

Red Cloud, de las Casas, and Columbus through their accounts brought some change to their audiences. Red Cloud and de las Casas specifically brought a lot of emotion to the reader in their texts. Red Cloud wrote about the injustice they faced while de las Casas wrote about the harm and injustice he saw. These texts showed tones of tragedy which were meant to compel the audience. This also may cause the audience to want to support their side because of the emotions in the text. Bartolome de las Casas wrote about how the Christians abused and took advantage of the Indians and this ended changing him and he became a priest. He wanted this same affect to be applied to the audience of his accounts.