The Alchemist

See page titled "Reflection" for my reflection over my sophomore year and my Genius Hour project.

I have found my favorite scene. I am not entirely sure why I like it so much, or why I found it so funny, but I am sure that I thought it was funnier than it was. The scene starts off with Miami police officer Monica running into Miami International Airport looking for other offices to help her find Snake and Eddie, who are attempting to fly to the Bahamas with a bomb capable of blowing up most of the city and killing millions. As "comedic relief" in a story with only humorous parts, we meet Daphne. Daphne, a thirteen-foot python, has caused a riot. Her owner wanted to fly with her loose on the plane, and the Delta airline personnel are telling the owner that is not allowed. As the owner is describing how well behaved Daphne is (she is still loose, wrapped around her owner), she spots two little Yorkshire terriers, Pinky and Enid, in a pet transporter on the ground. Apparently, Daphne is hungry, so she slithers on over and attempts to break into the transporter by wrapping he...

In one of my earlier posts, I wrote about how Barry goes back and forth between the perspectives of different characters. Even while doing this, there is a surprising amount of interconnected actions that affect all the characters in different ways. This cohesiveness has been easy to spot in the last couple pages I have read. The best example of this involves goats. While Snake and Eddie and their hostages are headed to MIA (Miami International Airport), they make a sharp turn and cut across multiple lanes of traffic, which cuts of many vehicles and leads to eight goats being left free to roam on the freeway. Later, as all the other characters are trying to get to MIA, they end up stuck in traffic or seeing random goats walking around the road. On page 205, Leonard and Henry are attempting to get to MIA, but are getting stuck in traffic on the freeway (because of Snake and Eddie), so they turn on the radio to see if there is any news about the jam, but there is only a conversation abo...

So far, I am on page 158 of my book, which has a total of 292 pages. If there was one thing about the book that I wish was different, it would be the timing of the introduction of characters. At the beginning of the story, 2 or 3 characters would be introduced at a time. Usually this is not a problem for me understanding-wise, but when this occurred every couple pages, it got a little confusing. For example, in the first 5 pages, 5 characters are introduced. The bartender and a bearded man are introduced on page 4 (but are not named until page 10), and Snake and Eddie, two of the bad guys, are introduced on the next page. At the beginning of the book, this was not too much of a problem, but now that there are almost 20 characters who were introduced practically one after another, it is a little confusing to keep track of everyone and how they are connected to the plot. On a positive note, Barry has an interesting writing style because of the number of characters and perspectives in hi...

I was right about this book being absolutely hilarious. While reading the book, I can see the movie playing in my head, which just makes it more interesting to me. Sadly, though, the movie has influenced my opinion of the book in a slightly negative way. In the book, the characters are described in, to me, surprising detail. The characters I then see in my head do not always match up with what the actor I saw in the movie looks like. I also think that there are some characters in the movie that are not in the book, and that can get confusing when I try to match the book character with the corresponding movie one. Although, other than that, the movie and book are very similar. Sometimes I will read a sentence or paragraph of dialogue, and I will remember the movie character saying the same thing. That made me ecstatic! Usually, when books are made into movies, they are changed to where it seems like the movie is just a loose interpretation of the book. This is not the case for Big Trou...

I originally planned to read the book Seraphina by Rachel Hartman, but I changed my mind. I recently watched the movie Big Trouble with my parents, it was absolutely hilarious, and while reading the program information, I saw that it was based off a book by Dave Barry. The movie is so weirdly, absurdly funny, and includes weapon selling Russians, teenagers with daddy issues playing a water gun game (apparently called Killer), which leads to them being arrested multiple times, stupid cops, stupid panty-hose covered criminals, love at first sight, a bomb, and some other crazy things. From what I have read on Wikipedia, the book follows a very similar plot line. I decided to read this book instead because, as I said, the movie was very humorous, and I generally think that books are better than the movie, so hopefully it will be even better than the movie. It will be a little different with this book and movie though, because I usually read the book, then watch the movie, so I probably l...