Non Fiction: The Hazards of Growing up Painlessly

In the article “The Hazards of Growing up Painlessly” there is a girl named Ashlyn Blocker. She doesn’t feel pain. She feels certain things like hugs and holding hands but she doesn’t feel pain. The author of the article is named Justin Heckert. He explains how it can be dangerous to not feel pain. You can burn yourself and be internally bleeding and not even be aware of it. What if she gets stabbed in the back? She might not even notice.

The first time that Ashlyn really had experience with her disease was when she was cooking noodles. She was stirring it with a spoon and the spoon fell. She reached for it and didn’t feel any pain when she put her hand in the boiling hot water.

Ashlyn gets questions all the time about her not being able to feel pain. People always come up to her especially in school. She has to explain the same thing over and over again. It must get so tiring. Her friends don’t look at her differently than an average girl. Ashlyn basically has a normal teenage girl life except for her difference that she cannot feel pain. She still eats meals and does homework and plays with her friends.. When Ashlyn was born she didn’t make any sound. She was a very quiet baby and she didn’t make all that much of a fuss. That told a lot about her. Although it seems like a cool thing to not be able to feel any pain, its also very dangerous. Ashlyn has a lot of dangers of growing up without feeling pain. She could be dying and not even know it

One of the most interesting parts to me was “At school, she was once asked if she was Superman. Could she feel a punch to the face? Could she walk across burning coals as if she were walking on grass? Would it hurt if she were stabbed in the arm? The answers are no, no, yes, no.” I think that is really interesting. I mean I couldn’t imagine having to deal with that. I would always be constantly worried about myself, wondering if anything is wrong with me.

I think that it’s kind of interesting that the doctors didn’t help a lot. In the article it said that when Ashlyn was younger they took a lot of tests and nothing really came up to help them to see what’s going on. They said that they were the only ones that have this disease so they don’t know what to do. They didn’t have any cures or anything and they kind of left the family all on their own. The only advice they gave her was to keep an eye on her.

After reading this article I want to know more. I find this article really interesting and fascinating. I want to know what happens next to Ashlyn. Will there be a cure for her disease? What will the doctors do if they do anything? I think Ashlyn doesn’t deserve to feel no pain. I mean I think everyone wouldn’t mind having I higher tolerance for pain, but I don’t think anyone would actually not want to feel pain. I think the doctors should do more research and really find out what’s going on with Ashlyn. She deserves it.

Part Two: Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

     I am still reading “Nineteen Minutes”. In this book about a school shooting a lot of complicated things are happening. A boy named Peter goes to school one day but starts to shoot everyone. “Nineteen Minutes” is the kind of book that is really sad, but also a really big page turner. You are always on the edge of your seat wondering what happens next. It even makes you cry a little.

     A lot of elements are important in this book but I think a really big part of the book is the scene. Of course any type of act of violence is really sad and upsetting. But I think the fact that it happened in a school makes the problem a lot sadder. I think that the author did that on purpose. School shootings are so rare compared to bank robberies or a kidnapping or a stabbing I mean I have never even heard of such a thing like school shooting. The fact that someone is going into an environment that is supposed to be safe with a gun to shoot kids really pulls on your heart strings. I think the author did that on purpose for sympathy.

     The author also made the shooter a young boy that goes to the school. In the book, every chapter goes back and forth from the past to the presence and when the shooting happens you don’t feel bad for Peter. But then the next chapter will be about when he was younger he was severely bullied and you will feel really bad for him. The author used the scene to make you feel bad for this part too. She put him in jail and made him so he has no roommates and all he has is a bench with a pillow. I mean I have seen a reality show called “30 days” where the guy goes to jail for 30 days and it’s a lot better. He gets to roam around and there is free time. But not for Peter, he has to sit on that bench all day doing nothing. I think that is supposed to make you feel more sympathetic towards Peter even though he did kill ten people.

     Overall Jodi Picoult used many different scenes in her book to make you feel a certain way. She uses schools and jails for all sorts of bad things that makes you feel really bad for the characters. After I put down the book I always think about my surroundings. I think the author did a really great job of describing the scene in general and making you think about that and not only the dialogue. Even though I am not even half way through this huge book I know that its great and the scene plays into it a lot.

Ninteen Minues Whose Perspective is Missing

     This week I have chosen to write about social action question number two, which talks about perspective and whose perspective is missing. I am currently reading a book called “Nineteen Minutes” by Jodi Picoult. It is about a school shooting. It is told in many different perspectives and it goes back and forth from the past. In the story a young boy named peter goes into his school and starts shooting people. He kills ten people including one teacher. No one knows why he did it and no one knows how he got away with it.

     I think that injustice was served that day for all the families that lost a kid that day. There are about five main characters so far. Alex who is a middle aged women who is a judge and has a teenage daughter named Josie who got injured in the shooting. Josie is another perspective and so is Lacy who is Alex’s best friend and is a doctor. She has a son named Peter who is another perspective and he was the one who shot the kids. And a police officer named Patrick who investigates the scene of the crime.

     In “Nineteen Minutes” Josie has a boyfriend named Matt. He is a big part in her life and he isn’t one of the perspectives. In the school shooting he dies and it affects Josie’s life greatly. In the book it talks about how Josie feels like she isn’t important anymore. She is popular and pretty but she doesn’t feel real anymore. She feels like this fake person and the only person she can feel herself around is Matt. I think that is why it affects her more than anything else.  

     I think the author leaves Matt out of the picture because it wouldn’t have been as powerful when he died. We know it affects josie and that is really it. It would be interesting to see and hear Matt’s perspective but I feel like it’s more emotional and powerful to have just josie’s. It makes you feel really bad for Josie because connecting back to the beginning of the book, you realize he was the real person she was connecting to. In the book it says “either Josie was someone she wanted to be, or she was someone who nobody wanted” That is a really deep quote and it makes you realize that she feels really out of place even though she is really popular. Then later in that part, it talks about how Matt makes her feel better.  When she was hugging Matt she was thinking “I’m lucky, at that moment she could not remember anything but what it felt like to be adored” Being around Matt made her feel good and that is why I think the author left him out of the book, so when he was gone you could really feel how awful Josie felt and what she was going through.