Blog Review

          The blog post I reviewed is Natasha's, and it's titled "Why Ellen Hopkins May've Wanted Readers to Feel Uncomfortable". I find that what she wrote about Ellen Hopkins' choice of disturbing details in the book "Burned" is very accurate and interesting. I too read the book, and whole-heartedly agree that some of the content in the book really stuck in my head. I like how Natasha gave examples of some of the disturbing events to further prove her point, and I think she clearly summarized the main disturbing events that take place throughout the story without going too deep into the summary. I like how she chose the two disturbing events that were wrote about the most and used them to show that the author uses them to promote awareness.
          I like how Natasha went in-depth to try and figure out the reasons behind all the disturbing content, exactly how we analyzed the reasons Meghan Cox Gurdon used disturbing scenes from books in her article about dark young adult fiction earlier in the year. In this case, I think Natasha is absolutely right by saying that part of the reason Hopkins give such explicit detail is to show the reader how Pattyn felt in the situations, and what these horrible situations are like to those who go through them. I find it interesting that she connected this to helping victims of these situations fuel their emotions to stop them. It's a great point, and I think her point that showing the readers exactly how these situations look and feel like, they can dissuade readers from, for example, having unprotected sex or not doing anything about child abuse. This analysis by Natasha into the reasons Hopkins chose to write some of the things she did was very interesting and showed how she thought deeper about the book.
          I also like how in the final paragraphs, Natasha describes a thoughtful idea in just a few sentences. She says that by adding description of disturbing situations, Hopkins makes the reader feel empathy and made the ending more upsetting. Having read the book, I agree that Hopkins' style of writing and use of description of what Pattyn goes through does create a bond with the reader, and that the ending then becomes heartbreaking and very frustrating and disturbing. I like how Natasha summarized this idea in just five sentences, and I think this was a theme for her entire blog post. She had concise, thought-provoking ideas that were not too wordy or complicated, but caused me to really think back to the book and see for myself that it was true. I think her points showed how deeply she analyzed this book, and overall, her blog post was very interesting and well written.
http://natashasbookblog26.blogspot.com/