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Summary Response to “Revolution” by Jennifer Donnelly

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Portrait of Louis XVI

Portrait of Louis XVI (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

In the first few pages readers meet the main character, Andi, from whose point of view the novel is written. Andi is a troubled high school senior who tragically lost her younger brother, and blames herself for his death. She feels that she could have and should have prevented it. Her father left the family in Brooklyn and works in genetics in another state. Her mother is a painter, a very well talented one. But, the loss of her ten-year-old son has devastated her to the point that she doesn’t sleep or eat, she only paints hundreds of pictures of her son. Andi attends a private school at which academics are held to an extremely high standard. Her dad even says that before Truman died, she could accomplish anything, that she was a genius. Since her Truman’s death her grades have suffered greatly and all that keeps her sane are drugs from her therapist and music. Andi’s father finally returns and admits her mother to a mental hospital and takes Andi with him to Paris where he is doing research on what could be the heart of Louis XVI’s son Louis-Charles. He and Andi make a deal that if she finishes her thesis that is required to graduate she can fly home early. His partner G, lets Andi borrow a guitar. One day while playing with the lock, she discovers a secret compartment in the case. Inside it she finds a picture of a little boy and an old diary belonging to a young girl, Alexandrine who lived during the French Revolution. Andi begins to read the diary and as Alex’s story unfolds she learns that Alex looked after Louis-Charles and loved this little boy so much that she risked her life to set off fireworks for him when he was locked away in a tower after the beheadings of his parents. At the same time, Andi is struggling to find information and gather it into a PowerPoint about her thesis on Malherbeau and the DNA of music at the library and museum. She finishes it in time, but after her dad gives her his approval, she finds out that the airports are on strike. Somehow in her free time in the middle of all this work, she made some friends at a little restaurant where they play music. Andi starts developing feelings for one of the boys, Virgil. She knows that its not a good idea to pursue her feelings, because she is flying back to Brooklyn. She knows she is in enough pain and emotionally can’t handle any more hurt. Virgil saves her from committing suicide twice in the same night by taking her to a gig. When the police bust the party, Andi gets separated and trips and gets knocked out. In her mind, she goes back to the 18th century, becomes Alex as the green man, is rescued by Malherbeau, sets off fireworks for Louis-Charles, and is shot by the guards after the green man. In this dream-like state, Andi overcomes her depression and realizes what she wants out of life. She gets an A on her thesis, graduates, moves to Paris with her mom, goes to college there, and starts dating Virgil. For such a dark, bleak story line, the ending is uplifting.

 

At first glance at this novel, the cover made me think it would be one of my favorites that we were assigned to read. Then, as I read the first 150 pages or so, I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it through to the finish. But after reading further, I got really interested in the story and it was hard to put down not knowing what was going to happen next and in the end. Much like Andi can’t put down Alex’s diary. I really enjoyed reading this novel. It had a pretty balanced amount of action, adventure, romance, suspense, and problems to entertain a wide variety of audiences. It would be appealing to music lovers, I don’t know much about music but still enjoyed the ways that it helped Andi cope and how it became such a large part of the story. The history part was very interesting and intriguing. We all study the French Revolution in school, but this different take on the events made it really come alive. But the novel not being entirely set in the 18th century kept it interesting, having both settings I think keeps the reader involved and having to pay close attention to details. I’m a big fan of foreshadowing and when her dream scene revealed so much, I absolutely couldn’t but it down. The issues addressed in this novel are very relative to students today. Students know about and deal with or know someone dealing with depression, suicide, loss of a family member, drug abuse, not fitting in, rebellion, parents they don’t want to listen to, criticism, relationships, not knowing how to cope, self-blame, self-doubt. I really felt that students could relate easily to one or possibly more of the many characters in this novel. I thought that this would be a great novel to teach to a whole class or in small groups. Because once I finished the novel I recommended it to three of my friends who are avid readers. I can picture students doing the same thing by talking about it among their peers. It doesn’t feel like a forced read. I would definitely have a copy in my classroom bookshelf for students to check out and recommend it. I’m thinking about doing my unit on this novel because there are so many different areas that are open to so many possibilities. The different themes within the novel give teachers a lot of choice and areas to discuss and provide ideas for both fun and fundamental activities. The darker more serious issues such as the drug abuse, depression, and thoughts of suicide make for great classroom discussion or maybe more private journal entries. The more light hearted themes such as the music, history, the plans, and missions could also work into discussion and journals but using these themes to incorporate different fields into the English realm can make reading seem more fun to reluctant students, and show the variety of things and ways all of these ideas work together in the real world.

 

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Summary Response for “The Last Summer of the Death Warriors” by Francisco X. Stork

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Pancho’s story is a very depressing one. His mother dies when he was very young, his father dies in a terrible accident, and his sister, the last person he has left dies three months later. Pancho makes it his mission to avenge her death. Because even though he knows her death couldn’t have been an accident, the detectives and police do not see evidence to arrest anyone. Her death is ruled of natural causes, but Pancho knowing that she was deathly allergic to alcohol and reads that there were trace amounts of it in her system, sets out to find her killer. Pancho is taken to an orphanage called St. Anthony’s where he meets several people who will become very important in his life. He is standoffish and doesn’t want anything to do with anyone when he first arrives. Father Concha and DQ realize this and work around it to make things work out as they are supposed to. Pancho is to be DQ’s assistant and goes with him to all of his chemo treatments. DQ’s mother has him signed up for a clinical trial that makes DQ even weaker and sicker. DQ and Pancho stay at La Casa Esperanza where Pancho meets Marisol and becomes really close friends with her. DQ is in love with Marisol but Marisol falls in love with Pancho. Pancho also befriends an eight year old named Josie who is a little spitfire that he gets really attached to. It seemed as if Pancho was trying to make up for time he didn’t spend with Rosa by playing with and entertaining Josie. When the time comes for DQ and Pancho to leave La Casa Esperanza and stay with DQ’s mother, Pancho cries when he says goodbye to Josie. This was the revealing moment of Pancho’s soft side. Marisol and DQ both realize that there are two sides to Pancho’s personality. One is tough, angry, revenge seeking, and capable of murder. The other is patient, kind, loving, and loyal. Through the entire novel DQ teaches Pancho this theory he has about what he calls “death warriors.” He has devised a system and a set of rules that death warriors follow. Death warriors love life and want to suck the marrow out of it. DQ knows that Pancho wants to avenge his sister’s death, and ultimately keeps him from ruining his life by murdering her killer and being imprisoned by inspiring him to be a death warrior. Marisol also plays a part in Pancho’s decision to become a death warrior. DQ and Marisol continuously tell Pancho he has to choose which Pancho he wants to be. When Pancho goes to kill his sister’s murderer, he finds out that he has an eight year old girl with dolls just like Rosa’s. The scene where he goes to Bobby Lewis’s house was amazing to me. There is so much thought and determination to complete the task he set out to do, but in the end he rises above the anger and revenge to become a death warrior and stand by DQ’s side for the rest of DQ’s life, and also to learn to love Marisol and live the life of a death warrior.

I was surprised at how this novel developed. In the beginning it was hard for me to get into the story. I felt very estranged from a 17 year old, male, Hispanic, orphan. I couldn’t figure out where the story was going or how things would end up. I liked that this novel dealt so detailed with the issue of cancer. Most high school students either have none or very little experience with knowing someone with cancer. If they do the person probably isn’t their own age. I felt that this would give insight to students that could help cut down on the pity and teasing that occurs with young cancer patients. Like the characters in this book, they want to be treated like everyone else. They want to live out how ever many days they have happily. Seeing Pancho being reluctant to help DQ seemed very realistic and believable, but how his character grows to love his friend and want to help him is amazing. Another issue I felt was interesting that this novel dealt with was the way that Pancho deals with death. We don’t really hear much about his mother’s death, but his father’s death really only gave him a sense of manly responsibility that he had to take care of his sister and support their family, and to never drink. It taught him good respectable traits. I also liked the negative associations with alcohol. But Rosa’s death fills him with anger he wants to kill her murderer. It talks repeatedly about how he plans to do it, that he has enough planning to get his dad’s gun and strategically hide it everywhere he goes. That was really the only part that would make me nervous about teaching this novel in a classroom. If the students were upper grade level, I think it would be a great novel with many lessons to take away from reading it. I thought that both male and female students would enjoy and want to discuss lots of topics and actions in the novel. I really liked the central theme of having faith. I believe that the best advice anyone can ever receive is that you have to believe something can happen with your whole heart before its truly possible. Without faith in something we can’t humanly deal with many issues we face in our lives. Such as death of loved ones, cancer, illness, even love and relationships. The characters in this novel are so realistic and multi dimensional that everyone should be able to identify with at least one of them. Something else I enjoyed about this novel was that each and every character’s role was ultimately important to Pancho’s decision to become a death warrior. Some of them seemed insignificant but each and every one of them had a handful of impact on his life. I would definitely recommend this to my students, and think it would be a great book to teach a unit on. There are so many things that the reader takes away from this book. It keeps you thinking even after you are finished reading it. Which are my favorite kinds of books.

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