Alana – English 11

Pages 345-399 (end) of The Swallows by Lisa Lutz

I finished this book in about 40-50 minutes this morning, but It was so good and I’m kinda sad to have finished it. ANYWAY, here’s what happened!

Lets start with the first chapter of the section, presented by Witt! So she notes on the mega divide in the kids, but essentially chalked it up and thought everything would be fine after break (cuz remember, we’re a few days away from Christmas break at this point). Then she gets a text from Claude saying to meet her at the studio and be quiet coming in. She went. It was nighttime, but when she got there, she turned on the lights. Get this.

Claude was on the floor, in front of Adam, giving him a blowjob. A TEACHER. Giving a STUDENT head. yeah. Witt rushed out of there real quick, then got drunk. Then connected to dots. Dulcinea (the real name of the bj award), is actually a play on Claudine. yeah. so that was a crazy start right? it gets worse.

By the next day, Adam and Claude had already gone to the dean and told him that Witt was participating in relations with Adam, when it was actually Claude. Shitty move on Claude’s part, but especially Adam’s. Witt and Claude had to leave the school, and at this point it was a few days before break so everyone thought they ditched, even though Adam had to leave too.

Witt was essentially expelled, she couldn’t talk to the kids or be near the school anymore pending an investigation, so she went and stayed with the Coach at his place.

Gemma, over break, got adopted by the dean (he was already fostering her). Also over the break, Gemma broke into Adam’s room and filing cabinet and got aaaaaaalllllll the shit he had on other people. No joke. He had dirt on everyone at that school. And he had the proof that Claude was actually doing stuff with him and not Witt. Essentially he had incriminating stuff in his possession.

Gemma and Jonah were dating before break started, but then essentially broke up after he got back. And by this time the whole group was back together, and then she showed them all that Adam had gathered on people. This was kind of the turning point in the book (28 pages before the end!), and the girls were finally done with peace.

When Adam got back and found his stuff missing, he grabbed Linny and a few other guys and interrogated her. She only told them that she was the one who messed with the water heater, and so they took her to the showers and did hot then cold over and over again, then stripped her down and took pictures of her. That was so sick and twisted I felt physically ill reading what happened to her. Then when she was offered a warm shower to warm up, she SCREAMED no showers. I felt so bad for her like she was a real person. anyway.

Ford got a text from Claude saying to come over during break but he didn’t respond to anything school-wise over break so he went when he got back. She had actually overdosed, but we don’t get to find out what happened to her regarding her survival or lack thereof. I won’t lie, I didn’t feel bad that Lutz essentially killed her off. Maybe that was a bad thing, but after her actions I just couldn’t feel bad. Anyway, moving on.

Gemma and some of the girls made molotov bottles in the library. This is where things get soooo bad. I guess after finding out the boys took pictures of Linny, they decided to actually use the bottles. The next chapter was Witt, where we find out Jonah had locked the editors in the lounge room, and other things regarding Linny, so she and Coach went to the school. The girls ended up throwing the bottles into the locked lounge where the editors were, and the fires caught.

Also, funny to say, but Primm was supposed to be on watch with the kids, but she was the LAST to show up. And then she pointed the blame on the girls! With no proof! Like how are you going to blame someone if you don’t know the full story? anyway.

Three boys got out of the Lounge. Gabe, Mick, and Jack. They thought Adam had gotten out at that point, so thats what they told the authorities. Well they were wrong. When the fires got put out and the firemen went in, then found not only Adam, but also Jonah, who tried to unchain the door to get them out but cut himself with the axe he was using. Later we find out Jonah would be fine, but his leg would take a while to heal and his soccer scholarship was gone. We also find out Adam died from the fire.

I also didn’t feel bad that he died either. his character’s actions kind of deserved major punishment, but I guess death was his punishment. Although he would never rot in prison like people who are like him should. Anywayyy. The other boys survived but thats unimportant.

The girls never got charged for arson or murder/manslaughter, and all the blame was eventually put on Adam. I’m biased in this topic but I think regardless if he was dead it was kind of deserved. I’m not going to debate this either, so agree or don’t but that is my thought on the matter.

Gemma and the girls grew apart, as both Emelia and Tegan want to forget what happened. However, Mel and Kate are bound to Gem, and they all got matching tattoos of an axe.

The book ends with Witt, as she tells of her new life/current thoughts a year later. She ended up taking a job as a fencing instructor at a girls school. I quite love the last two paragraphs, as she says, “In a perfect world, they wouldn’t need to fight…You can keep telling girls to be polite, to keep a level head and it’ll all work out in the end. but don’t be surprised when they figure out that you’ve been feeding them lies. Don’t be alarmed when they grow tired of using their voices and playing by your rules. And don’t be shocked when they decide that if they cant win a fair fight, they’ll just have to fight dirty” (Lutz, 399).

Overall this book was amazing. Was very slow though, and only in the last 100 pages did things really amp up, but overall it was a very enjoyable book and such a great representation of girls (or anyone in general) finally having enough of the injustice they experience and then fighting for their justice. Definitely a great example of individual vs. society as the girls fight against the society norm of the bj award and just the overall messed up place that Stonebridge became. Also tells of amazing proof of what collaboration can do, and just how much you may need some people. I think this book is soooo powerful and such an amazing story of justice. But yeah, thanks to all who’ve read my posts, voluntarily or not.

Pages 289 – 344 of The Swallows by Lisa Lutz

Kay so this section was good. I quite loved it, cuz things sort of picked up. Things definitely happened though, so I’ll just start.

Started with how Witt saw the Thanksgiving dinner party thing, and what happened there to her, nothing big. But we get a little bit of interaction between Witt and Coach Keith. Remember how the dean wanted Witt to teach fencing but she adamantly refused? Well we find out that she went to college on a FENCING SCHOLARSHIP. I’m just curious what made her stop, and why it’s now such a taboo and touchy subject for her.

We’re still right after Thanksgiving right now, so its just the orphans there for a bit (the orphans this break are Jonah, Norm, Mel, Gemma, and Kate just got back). We also find out that Linny was the reason for the hot water/cold water attacks in the boys bathroom, the blackout, and the poison oak outbreak in the boy’s dorms. Honestly shes a beast and so amazing for that. Coach and Rupert (the janitor?) both didnt say anything about her work.

So we know the girls got into the darkroom and to the area where the BJ award was being discussed yeah yeah old news. So Witt told the girls to decode the girl’s names and show them their cards, and expose to the girls what the boys had been saying about them and doing to them. So they did. And the majority were so eager to work with them to take down the boys. We also find out Norman is gay, which I did NOT expect, cuz he was hinting he liked Mel but I guess not??? whatever.

Witt had sex with the Coach, but they actually kinda like each other this time anot not just hookup like with Ford. ANYWAYYYYYY. here is where the fourth part in the book starts; the War.

This girls devised a plan btw, which at first it was to do business as usual so nothing weird or different from the normal. Then it was “Operation Blue Balls”, to which the girls would refuse to do a bj. Obviously the boys were puzzled and started to catch on, but only did they really think that the girls were ‘rebelling’ when 3 of the girls ate a jalapeno pepper and the gave them a bj, which obviously put them in pain. Honestly good thinking because finally. The boys who got the pain were Adam, New Nick, and Gabe. Those ones really deserved it so good going on the girls!

Also, Ford called Witt “predictable, prudish, and a complete bore” all because she said he should’ve said something about the twisted competition and not just use it as a plot for his book. (Now that I’m thinking about it, isn’t it a bit ironic that Lutz wrote a book about it, and then made a character write a book about it? whatever, doesnt matter, continuing on!).

Gemma, Mel, Kate, Emelia, and Tegan all shaved their heads, which was such a power move. Also, in Witt’s class the girls and boys are completely separated now, which makes sense considering their drama.

Norman told Jonah that his older brother and that brother’s friend created the bj award, which honestly was crazy. And it’s only been 5 years of this whole comp, which is crazy! Both of them also got beat up by Adam and Mick. Norman because he lied and told the boys the girls have their own darkroom (incorrect, but they don’t know that), and Jonah because he said he lets the girls into the darkroom (also incorrect but they don’t know that).

Another thing to add! The girls have been chopping down trees to satiate their anger, but then they were told to stop. Just a neat little detail. Also, it’s almost winter break now, so that was the time frame. From thanksgiving break almost to christmas break in this section.

Yeah, those were the events of the book in this section. Tons happened, and fiiiiiiiinaaallllyyyyyy the boys got some fuarking payback. I’m kind of excited to finish the book, since the next is the last section, but it’s also bittersweet. Having to plan this over weeks and dragging out the finish mark makes it almost sad to me to finish the book. Whateverrrr anywayyyy. Luts really leaned into the ‘repurcussion of your own actions’ theme within this section, and I cant wait to see what she does next! (And sorry to the readers who have been waiting for this!)

Pages 233 – 288 of The Swallows by Lisa Lutz

So lots to unpack here. Expect a lot of summary cuz you gotta know what happened ok? cool.

So Claude, the librarian, her mother died. They had a wake for her mother, but really it did nothing to remember or honor the memory of her mother. Through the entire section Claude was just gone. At the end, Ford visited her and the house was trrraaasssshhhhheeeedd. Bad. And we find out her mom didn’t leave anything to Claude. Crazy thing was she said she was “more of a wife to him that my mother ever was” (Lutz 283). That was a crazy confession. But moving on.

Jonah got kicked out of the editors, which he was very happy about. And then it was Thanksgiving break. Most kids left but the senior orphans this year were Mel, Jonah, Gemma, and Norman. Also, Gemma found out by Adam that she was entered into the BJ contest. That was a surprise tbh. Right after that was where the new section Part III called “The Army” started.

When Gemma found out she was in the contest, she went to Jonah and had a little heated argument. he was on her side, he hates the contest and wants to find who entered her name into the contest (she hasn’t given a BJ to anyone btw). They ended up kissing too, not a surprise.

Norm, Mel, and Gemma met up and talked about the darkroom. So remember the 4 birds they found? they all DO represent something. Sparrow is young and pretty, but then she could turn to a loon (crazy), a hawk (mean), or an owl (nerd or virgin hawk). The nomenclature of the birds was kind of fluid and meant whatever the boy wanted it to. He then told them there was only one ONE bird behind the BJ award door within the darkroom website. My first thought it’s GOTTA be the swallows.

I was right. The only bird being submitted to the BJ award is the swallows. The. Girls. Are. Called. Swallows. Ok so first, apparently that was a name for female spies in the Cold War. But that is absolutely disgusting and so degrading oh my gosh. (I haven’t felt the need to swear in a post until NOW. I’m THAT mad).
The section ended with Norman tweaking out high outta his mind at the thanksgiving dinner meal the dean put on.

OOOOOOKAY. Glad we got the summary over. So within in this section, honestly i feel like Lutz brings light to the dark side of “boys will be boys” and shows what they will do without being stopped. The girls, however, are working towards tearing that down thank GOD. but yeah! that was the section and what went down. next section has the final part, part IV called “The War”.

Pages 173 – 232 of The Sparrows by Lisa Lutz

This section was everywhere and nowhere all at once, but every time when I go to write for the section I get soooooo confused by what I read even though I understood as I was reading. Anyway, here’s everything.

So to start, remember how Witt left her last school because she was recorded having sex and it went around blah blah blah whatever. And remember how she chose to live in the little run down cottage too? Cool so now we’re caught up. Well she’s been finding SHOE TRACKS going around her cabin. I should probably say this happened last section but I didn’t mention it then because I thought it minor. It wasn’t.

ANYWAY. She put tinfoil on the windows, but days (or weeks I don’t know how long it had been) later she got a video of someone recording her BEFORE she put of the foil. Very creepy. Goes to show that you could have someone watching you without even knowing it, and that’s very dangerous. She never left the cabin though. She didn’t leave until later on when her whole cabin flooded and she was forced to leave.

ALSO! She finally solved all of the Q&A’s. Gives a nice little bit of insight to the characters, even though I already know the main ones but nice for the background characters to know them too.

ANOTHER THING- the girls got into the Darkroom. Ok it wasn’t as epic as you’d think, because Mel met up with Norman and got in from there. The material on the website is actually disturbing. I mean, I KNOW that this is all fake or whatever but it makes me uncomfortable because there has gotta be SOMEWHERE that has this exact thing happening. Its horrid. I don’t want to go into detail of the conversations happening, but you probably think that they’re just talking about girls. You’re right. Just make the conversations the most unholy and degrading things you can think of. Everyone has a username on the website, and I believe that no one really knows who is who, or at the most they have an idea.

The girls, however, have a distinct code that all boys understand. An example given was “3Loon12.” The girls all have one of 5 birds in their “name,” but they only know hawk, loon, sparrow, or owl. The reason for which bird they don’t know but suspect its the girls’ temperament. The first number is their year in the school, so 1 = freshman, 2 = sophmore, etc etc. The last two numbers are their initials, so 1-26 would be the alphabet. And only some boys talk about some girls, so if they figure out the girls, they figure out the boys, or vice versa, and the whole thing can unravel.

Oh the website had a whole bunch of photos of girls’ parts, if you will. But a few days after Mel got in they all got deleted. This made the boys talk in more depth about the things, since they couldn’t post pictures or whatever. Gross either way. But also, the BJ award page is on a separate tab within the website, but the girls can’t access it yet. Boys can be really crappy my gosh, I don’t even care that they’re fictional at this point because I can see some of them in people I’ve known or still know. Crazy, but whatever.

Throughout this whole thing, Lutz has been demonstrating what can and will happen after years of mistreatment. Gemma, Mel, Kate, Linny, and Witt are all working to end the whole Darkroom and bring to light the issues that the headmaster and counselor refuse to acknowledge. This whole thing may go up in flames, but it’s gonna show the power of only a few against a normalized (but obviously screwed up) society.

A big thing in this book, style wise, is really short chapters. Within those chapters, although some will just seem like fillers (obviously I’ve had a problem with this), most actually give really good little hints and jabs at what is to come next. Not only that, but it allows for more insight on the different characters which I LOVE. Even though all of them are technically unreliable narrators, it’s nice to get their take on the whole situation, which I believe that Lutz’s definitely put into consideration when she was writing.

This section was definitely a bit better than the last, but I fear I may just say that to convince myself I believe it. Few hopes and predictions/ thoughts to go. I am really hoping that the girls can either 1) figure out who the boys’ usernames are, or 2) get into the tab for the award. Honestly it might happen, one of them. The next section starts part 3 in the middle of it, which is called ” The Army,” so hopefully something big happens. Unless the name just means they’re gonna get a lot more girls on their team. Also, I reread the like preview/overview of the book (I don’t know what it’s called), and It said that it may have “deadly consequences,” so that’s insane.

Pages 115 – 177 of The Swallows by Lisa Lutz

At this point I’m having such mixed thoughts of this book. It’s okay, but I think this stupid schedule is messing me up and making me like the book less than if I was just reading to read. Anyway, here’s the sitch going on in this section.

Starting with Norman, since he was the first chapter. So we know that he is the mind behind the whole security of the Darkroom. As Gemma’s plan moves forward, Mel is set up to try to hack into the Darkroom. Norman obviously knows about this, and instead of upping the guards he essentially lets her in, telling her to stop trying to hack and just get in like a normal person. He sent this message with a fake name, but honestly I think that was an awesome move on his part. He’s been fed up with the Ten and the Darkroom for a long time but hasn’t known how to get out, so I think this is the best thing he could’ve done, not only for him but for the girls as well. It also makes me think that honestly, you don’t know how many supporters you will have until you out yourself out there, and Norman was a perfect example of that.

Next onto Gemma, she has successfully gotten Mel and Kate on her team, and had the waffles girl (her Q&A said she liked waffles but her name is Alyson) on there too briefly. Alyson ended up leaving Stonebridge because her ex taped them having sex and gave it to the Darkroom when he graduated, and she just found out. But get this, she only found out because of her compliance with the other girls, who obviously been working to take down the BJ award/darkroom. They all got paper mail and waffles got a little box with the hard drive, and that’s how she found out. Really screwed in my opinion.

So yeah, they’re back to 3 members, and someone knows who exactly is trying to take down the Darkroom. Oh, I didn’t say this earlier in Norman’s section but he and the other editors had a meeting and one of the topics was the BJ award. The boys don’t know WHO is specifically the reason, but they know the girls are talking.

Also, all of this takedown team’s meetings have been done in a small office Gemma claimed as her own. Anyway, Ms. Witt has obviously been working on helping them to take down the stupid competition, and she made a whole chart that lists the answer to if you should blow a guy. Honestly, I think it is a valid chart to use outside of the book but that’s just my opinion.

Oh and quick timeline update, it has been just over a month since Kate’s leaked picture.

Later, though, Ford got super high one Saturday and he and Witt hooked up. It was soooooo emotionless though (ok let me be clear, there wasn’t deep details thank GOD but it was still in the book). Ford kind of explained it as Witt asked (cuz she stayed over and they slept in the same bed, of course cuz why wouldn’t you take the couch or go back home right?? whatever), so they did, and then Witt fell right to sleep after like it was nothing.

TO BE FAIR, even though Witt was lowkey selfish, she did it like that for a reason. I’M NOT JUSTIFYING HER ACTIONS OKAY ITS A FICTIONAL CHARACTER. Anyway, she tells of her experience at Warren Prep, her last school, which makes sense as to why she did it that way. So she had this kid that would hangout in her room a lot, so obviously he had a crush. Now like other students she let the kids stop by to ask questions or for a listening ear or whatever right, so he was going to do that like normal, but this is where it changed. He saw her getting it on with another guy. And recorded it.

This kid is a creep!! He WATCHED them have sex! and RECORDED IT! Then! He showed his friends! and well you know how it went from there. I think that happens at a lot of schools nowadays sadly. But yeah, that’s how and why Witt left Warren Prep and went to Stonebridge. Except she doesn’t know it, but some of the kids already know why she left.

Terrible. That’s all that really happened this section. I kind of liked it, but it was kind of just filler chapters after filler chapters, with minor plot stuff happening. I really hope that the next section we get more actual plot of the girls taking down the Darkroom. And I really hope that the boys don’t catch onto WHO is trying to tear down the Darkroom/award.

Pages 58 – 114 of The Swallows by Lisa Lutz

This section started out with Ford as the first chapter. The whole chapter was essentially him and the other faculty members named Claude, Evelyn, and Primm. I havent been able to really track what they all do, since it isn’t very clearly told, but those are the names. Now Primm has a veeeeeeerrrrryyyyy obvious crush on Ford, and she’s basically all over him. He isn’t into her though, and everyone else can tell but her (kind of reminds me of people at school). Anyway, they’re all waiting on Witt to show up to the bar, and they’re all just kinda of talking. Claude and Primm start up a conversation about Witt, disecting her as best they can. thats when the POV switches to Witt. Witt gets there and she asks about the hierarchy of the school and they give her a list of the current Ten. Also found out that the Ten have no correlation with academic success, so it’s just popular kids, just like school except school is less harsh. At some point, Primm went to the bathroom, and Ford had her switch places so Witt was in the middle. After a bit out of the bathroom, Primm ‘accidentally’ spilled her drink on Witt and Ford. Definitely not by accident, she was soooooo jealous of Witt. Anyway, thats really all that happened at the bar, but Witt comes home to a message telling her to “Find Whitehall,” a teacher who previously worked at Stonebridge.

The next chapter was Gemma, where we get to finally read her origin story (it was an assignment from Witt). She talks about how her parents ran a meth lab in their basement then got put with her grandma, then foster homes. She was told by her junior year counsellor she should apply for a private school and only the dean of Stonebridge was willing to house her all year. He let her move in that summer and she’s been there since (shes a senior). She ends her origin story there, but continues on telling of her summer before senior year. She told stories of her, Mel, Carl, Amy, and Jonah hanging out. As the school year started, everyone went to their respective groups. No doubt everyone has had that happen at least once in their life. Anyway, Jonah and Gemma had a crush on each other, but when the school year started he essentially went ghost. After Gemma found out about the BJ award (its the Dulcinea but it’s easier to say BJ so im just gonna call it that), she realized Jonah was protecting her by keeping her away. At some point, she saw this one member of the Ten out doing something, but he thought she saw what he was doing, and that is how Gemma got into the Ten. The time skips back to now and she talks to Kate, and they had a kind of cryptic small talk, and that was the end of Gemma for now.

Witt was next again, but she just went on a walk with her mom. nothing special, kind of just a filler in my opinion.

Next is Gemma again, but this time we read of the first Ten party of the year, mainly held for the new kid Nick. She tells of the girls being extra and the guys being weird, but she eventually leaves the party to meet with Jonah. They had been secretly meeting up for months, and at one point were even dating for a while. All he called her for was to give her a necklace he made in class. Thats all that happened.

Norman had a chapter now and talks more of the darkroom. He told of the start of the darkroom, and that the current ‘Editors’ of the darkroom are Mick, Jonah, Gabriel, Jack, and Adam. Maybe they’ll come into play mroe later but they’ve been background characters at this point. Norman was only invited to the darkroom to help secure it, which he did do, but also made it ten times more secure. His chapters are always short and he doesnt get many per section so this was a nice little bit of insight for this point.

Ford had a small chapter. All he did was meet with Mick to get him alcohol in exchange for information about what happened with Witt at her last school. He went to Witt’s cabin too, but only met her mom since Witt was showering. Nothing special there.

Witt is up again, and it starts off string with her returning from showering in the bathhouse hearing two kids talking. this was unusual though, because the girl wanted to stop doing it, but the guy told her to keep going or it was a forfeit. obviously this was about the BJ award and scoring. Witt decided to pull the fire alarm, and as she was leaving she noticed the light in her classroom was on so she snuck in there to find Gemma snooping.

Switched back to Gemma, and she was told of the other girls she thinks are like Gemma, but gemma warns the teacher by telling her that the stoners will never rat each other out (stoners is the nickname kids at stonebridge have). She also mentions Whitehall, leading to Witts next chapter perfectly.

Witt asked her dad for his private investigator’s information, but he just got back to her with all of Whitehall’s information. Witt made her trek, and Whitehall allowed her in her place to talk. This is when she tells of the Q&A’s and the instance at the bathhouse the other night. Whitehall informs her about the award. She also recalled that when she reported the system to Primm, the counselor, they had a seminar, but the girl who told Whitehall of the system dropped out the next day. Then, The teacher was found to have weed in her apartment, and was fired. That was obviously the doing of the boys, but still messed up regardless. In the end, Whitehall told Witt to watch her back. It clips back to the now, I guess, and she gives Gemma 3 Q&A’s that she may think will be her allies.

Back to Gemma now, and she recognised the first two as Kate and Mel, but the third was unkown to both. Regardless, she met up with Mel, who kind of agreed to help and also recruit Kate. This was the end of book’s section called In The Dark, and now starts Part 2, Allies.

Part 2 opens with Announcements and then a final Witt chapter to close this section. In this, she tells of Jonah having found and gone through all the Q&A’s. He just tells her to be more careful.

I don’t know. This section was interesting when I read it, but now I don’t really want to read the next section. I was so bored writing this and recalling what happened that I don’t want to read on. I also cant really like, connect this book with much. It is very well it’s own thing and I don’t know what to do with it.

pages 1-57 of The Swallows by Lisa Lutz

This book, like most, is starting off rather slow. It IS interesting, however. and the pov switches between a few characters, which I like in books.

So the first character we follow is a teacher names Alex Witt. She’s come to the private school of Stonebridge to end her teaching years after some disaster that happened at her last school. She only agrees to teach at the sort of run down school because she gets her own cottage, although come to find out it is reeeeeaaaallllyyy run down and doesn’t get basics like electricity and heat. So when she moves in literally the NEXT day, she finds a bottle of liquor, and she downs like half of it before falling asleep. The next day she wakes up late to go teach her first class at 8 am, and she finds a dead rat in the drawer of her desk, courtesy of a student named Gabriel. this is how I imagine the rat, nothing scary 🙂

She did NOT react to the rat (because of the leftover alcohol in her), which made the whoooooole class like her so much more, and they all respected her from the start after the way she handled the incident. She only teaches creative writing classes, although she’s never taught one before, but she is an English teacher so she handles it okay for the first day, assigning a project that anonymously tells her who the student is. Also, she was invited to go out for drinks with a few of the faculty, so thats gonna be interesting to see how it plays out.

So Witt is obviously the main character, but the book has multiple povs, the others being Gemma Russo, Norman Crowley, and teacher Finn Ford.

Gemma, whom Witt labels as the rebel on her seating chart, isn’t fond of her classmates. This is kind of because there is a social hierarchy that is so screwed. There’s a group called the Ten, which are the top ten people in each class. The boys in the Ten are called editors and made a thing called the Darkroom. The Darkroom isn’t an actual dark room, its just a private website of boys that go to Stonebridge, although you have to be chosen (and a boy) to get access to the site. To be honest, the whole “Darkroom” thing just seems very cult-ish. Anyhow, later in Gemma’s second chapter, we find out that there is a weird award that the girls don’t know about, yet participate in. Its called the Dulcinea award. It’s basically an award for blowing a guy (yes, that way), and it’s always an 8/10 with only way to get docked points is to leave permanent damage. Really messed up, but I guess that’s what comes from a private school. It made me think of the title, The Swallows, its not only a bird but I guess it could be also applied to blowing a guy. There’s just a very weird dynamic at the school not gonna lie.

Another character was Norman, who is kind of peculiar. He is part of the Ten, but thinks he shouldn’t be. He is also part of the Darkroom, but so far hasn’t said anything about it yet. He believes himself to be a coward, and it is definitely shown through his thoughts. He hasn’t had many chapters yet, I marked their chapters and he’s got the third most chapters. To be honest, I hope in the next section he tells something about the Darkroom, although he’s only got one chapter that section.

The last character is Finn Ford. He was the pervious creative writing teacher but he stopped so he could write his book, leaving the classes to Ms. Witt. When he first meets Witt, he is soooo into her, he kinda just wants to jump her bones the entire time she is talking. He only had one chapter this section, but he starts the next section so I’m hoping that we get more of his mind and less of his sexual desire.

More things about Witt, she knows the headmaster of Stonebridge. Old friends with her dad or something. Witt and her dad don’t have a good relationship though, and she even calls him to tell him that he needs to stop butting into her life and making choices for her. Honestly, reasonable. Neither of her parents were the best. Pretty sure they only stayed together for Alex, since they divorced after she went to college. Her dad has a book that went famous though, got turned into a movie and everything. I don’t know how he’s gonna play a part yet, but I honestly am curious to see how he wedges himself into the story.

ALSO, I forgot this. A student named Kate Bush (like the singer yes) had a photo of her doing some stuff alone LEAKED- DURING FIRST PERIOD! absolute tragedy. not going into detail because honestly ew, but yeah. Later in the last chapter of the section, a kid named Jonah asked Witt to be his advisor, and to be it she tried to get him to tell her who Wainwright is, but NOBODY will tell her. He does the announcements everyday, so just slightly weird. Anyway, she then asked him what happened to Kate, but that was right where the chapter left off for the section but I’m dyyyyyyiiiinnngggg to get the answer.

This book is honestly really good. I’m enjoying it so far, and I’ve really gotten invested. Staying true to my marked schedule and not even reading into the next section until I post this so I don’t have any opinions made that aren’t relevant to my current section (I’m very particular about that stuff)

I’m reading The Swallows by Lisa Lutz. I’ve wanted to get a book a little higher than I’ve been reading, yet still a thriller novel and this one was recommended to me. I’ll be reading this alone, and I’m looking forward to not writing in academic voice this time (I personally highly dislike writing in academic voice I prefer using personal pronouns). I’m a bit of a procrastinator, so the schedule should work well with about 57 pages per week, which is kind of easy for me. Also, I’m very picky with books, so I’m not sure if I’ll really enjoy this book or get into it or not. Heres a picture of a sparrow since thats part of the title, but also they are just cool birds in general.

Columbus’ journals likely had an effect on the audience that read them. He talked of the natives in a sort of condescending way, making the readers infer that he thought himself more superior than those he was surrounding himself with at his voyage’s end. Moreover, Columbus talked for the natives, saying they they had thought of him as some God or being from above that came down to them. This not only proves he thought himself as superior but also gives more reasoning to the audience that would sway them to think the same as he did. De Las Casas did the same, but in a different way. Instead of making the readers think themselves higher than the Indians, he told the audience of the many tragedies that they went through. This way of writing, especially with such detail of the many horrors, is excellent at getting a reader to agree or to realize some things. This brings along a change within the reader, likely sparking a want for change within the community (for readers at the time), and for those now an increased awareness to the horrors that this world still harbors. Like De Las Casas’ powerful narrative, Red Cloud’s speech was also powerful to the audience. His use of a friendly baseline while asking for major help and change implements empathy in the reader, making them more inclined to listen to his pleas for help. This empathy along with other methods like telling of the deceit that he went through makes his message so much more impactful, leading the audience to feel for him as they read.

Bartolome De Las Casas’ “The Very Brief Relation of the Devastation of the Indies” demonstrates that some cultural encounters may lead to the unjust treatmeant and abuse of other cultures. In his writing, De Las Casas explains the cruel treatment he witnessed the Spaniards inflicted upon the native people, introduced when he opened the text with, “This was the first land in the New World to be destroyed and depopulated by the Christians” (89). De Las Casas’ use of “destroyed” and “depopulated” puts deep emphasis on the cruelty that he witnessed in the Indies in only one introductory sentence. Not only that, but it shows that what the Spainiard did was so unrelenting that they reduced the amount of natives to the island to such a low number, possibly even to zero.