My Question: The book " When I Lay My Isaac Down" has many inspirational qoutes throughout the book? What's your favorite and why?

My favorite qoute in this book has to be " What is my vision of God's purpose for me? Whatever it may be, His purpose is for me to depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay calm, faithful, and unconfused while in the middle of the turmoil of life, the goal of the purpose of God is being accomplished in me. God is not working toward a particular finish- His purpose is the process itself.... It is the process, not the outcome, that is glorifying to God." Regardless if your a christian or a non-christian, we have all got to except life for what it is. People think that when living on earth turns into hell, the world is coming to an end. I believe that a human creates their own hell. I've always believed that saying. When my dad told me that saying I thought it was one of the smartest qoutes ever. Everyone acts like they can't take control of their life and no matter who or what you believe in everyone has the right to living a good life. If you always do, what you've always done, then you'll always get what you've always gotten. Its a matter of doing something about it and not just sitting around while life passes you by day by day. This is my favorite qoute because it is a qoute I can relate the most to.

Defining moment of the character?

The defining moment for the character is when Carol Kent gets the news that her son will be executed for 1st degree murder. At first she describes the trial as the most emotional time of her life but instead of the character weeping over the death that she has to endure of her son she takes this as a time to become closer with God. She sees this as an opportunity to really test her faith as well as her ability to cope with how her life is about to change FOREVER. When she has to see her son get executed she tries to hold her emotion in. She sobs and weeps some more for the day but as her and her husband Gene discuss the situation, they both realize that you can't worry about the things that you can't change. " To me the resurrection means having God's joy inside me no matter what's going on outside me. When I think of the events leading to the resurrection- jesus's beatings, crucifixion, and slow, torturous death- i remember that as I wait for the right job to surface, I must crucify any negative or angry thoughts and words, and resurrect them as God's peaceful, joyful alternatives" This is what the character writes as she tries to except what their life is now and how they will do what they can best to make it a joyful one. This is the defining moment because it truely shows the characters great strength and ability to look at a problem and to try and fix it.

Did the book come to a satisfactory close? I thought the book left off on a fantastic note. Although Carol Kent's ending has a great sadness because she is no longer with her son I feel that through the entire book this is the first time she finally sees the light. She excepts what life has given her and believes that everything happens for a reason. Her belief is that God will take care of everything and that you can't change what has happened but you can take control of whats happening now. " The faith that gets us through unthinkable circumstances begins with being flat-out needy and allowing God's love to wrap us up, hold us close, and dry our tears. One day we discover that our cries are being transformed into life-giving, healthy tears that are rebirthing faith, hope and joy. And life doesn't get much better than that!" Its an ending that allows happiness to enter a life of depression because we complain all the time and get sad about little bumps in the road but this person is still happy about a life without her own child. This shows that there are no excuses for a having a bad day. She also concludes that no matter how much you try to run from God he will still be in the presence . "God loves us when we don't want him to love us."- Carol Kent

Book Expectations

I chose When I Lay My Isaac Down by Carol Kent because a few years ago on a woman's trip through my church my mom, sister, and myself went to hear the author speak and afterwards went to her book signing. I was younger and hadn't started reading on a more mature level yet so I really didn't know what the heck this lady was talking about at the time. More recently, I asked my mom to give me a good non-fiction book to read and she thought this would be a good choice since I am now much older. As I glanced at a few of the pages in the first chapter I knew the book was about a family who had it all and something very tragic was about to change their life. When it comes to non-fiction books I like the stories that I can relate most to. And everyone knows what its like to have everything going good for yourself and no matter what the situation may be it always seems to be the best time that Evil wants to intrude in your life. More than just a pitty story it is a story of encouragement and motivation for all individuals going through stressful situations or have been in the pits of hell before. By reading the back of the book she uses much of her inspiration from the bible and I don't really take much time to read the bible so I enjoy hearing peoples experiences of how it changed their life and maybe it'll motivate me to atleast read something out of the bible. : )

What do you think is the defining moment for the main character/person in your book? Why?

The defining moment for Bella was the "moment" when she is turned into a vampire. I think this was her defining moment because she can't take it back. I believe there could possibly be other defining moments like when she gets engaged to Edward but once she was turned into a vampire thats a moment in the story that the main character can't take back. The story can now only move forward. You can be a human and change into a vampire but you can't be a vampire and change back into a human. Now the whole story has done a 360 and Bella has to deal with her life changing circumstances. "There was nothing in the world that I wanted more than him. Would that, could that, change? Was there a human experience that I was willing to give up?" After being turned into a vampire she then realizes that she has moved on and anything that she wanted to do in life, she CAN'T. She has to adjust and now she is questioning whether this was worth it all. A few pages later she has to endure her going away party and has to be careful how intimate her and edward get at the party. They have to be careful how they hug or kiss because anything wrong that they do will give their "non-humaness" away. She was explaining how different vampires kiss from humans. She also has to control her urges to drink human blood which is described in the second book as a vampire's own personal shot of heroine. Bella is now living the life of a true vampire and has to make many sacrifices for the love of her fiance'.

Does the author seem to make any particular effort to compel you to read the book? If so, what? How effective is this strategy?

She makes many efforts to get her readers excited to read her books. One thing that she does is at the end of every book in the Twilight series she gives you a chapter from the next book that gives you a sense of what you'll be reading about in the book after the one you're reading. The covers of the books are also very appealing to the eye as well as the qoutes that she puts in the beginning of her novels. For example, " Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And suffice."- Robert Frost. Every qoute connects to the content of the story. So, as you read along and finally get to the end of the book, you connect the qoute with what you've read. When I go to a Border's book store, I pick up a book and read the first two or three pages. Usually this will determine if this is really something that I want to read and if the story compels me to buy it and read it, then I'll take it home. The very beginning of the first chapter is a letter written from Jacob, Bella's best friend, the words are somewhat hurtful but loving at the same time but the words have lines running through them, where Jacob has decided to take out certain sentences because he doesn't want to hurt Bella and he doesn't want to say the wrong thing. I thought this was very clever because this is how a real letter looks that comes from a loved one or when you try to write a letter. Sometimes you just can't write out what you want to say because you want to have everything perfect, especially when this is a letter from the heart or a letter that is trying to impress someone that you adore and love. It compelled me to the book because I love a good romantic story and I wanted to read more because the situation of writing a love letter, and thinking of someone you love very much I can understand a great deal from my own experiences.

Did the book come to a satisfactory close for you? Why/Why not?
The book came to a satisfactory close for me because Edward and Bella got married, they had a baby, and they beat the Vulture group of vampires so i was satisfied with the ending although i wished the book would not have ended at all because it was so good. ofcourse the ending didnt answer everything but thats because Meyer has written the story into a series so your not suppose to have the answers until the last book. Having knowing what I know I will definitely pick up the next book so more questions that I have can be answered. Will the marriage last? I mean she's only eighteen and he's technically 80 but just has the appearance of a seventeen year old. Have they rushed into things too quickly? How will this marriage affect Bella's relationship with Jabob, who's her best friend and a werewolf? Meyer never lets her readers down and I know that the 4th book with please me very much.

Eclipse (Twilight Series)

Why did you choose this book? What were your expectations? Why did you expect what you did ? How is the book living to your expectations?

I chose the third twilight book because I've already completed reading the first two books Stephanie Meyer has written in the series and she leaves me wanting to read more, so I read Eclipse to see what was going to happen next. I expected the book to be full of surprising twists and her romantic dialogues that she writes between Edward and Bella so the audience can get the true feeling of the passion between the two lovers. The book has passed lived up to my expectations by this point because the rising action of the story involves Bella being turned into a vampire which completely changes how the author has to go about writing the story and I'm really wondering how this will interfere with her human life and how she will deal with her urge to eat human beings when thats all that surrounds her most of the time.

Engaging?

What has the author done to engage you the reader in a relationship with the books content?
I must say the author of this book has many surprises in her writings. She is not afraid to completely twist the story into something else. It keeps me engaged very much and it's not your typical love story. You know, " boy likes girl, girl kind of likes boy, he does really sweet things for her, and they fall madly in love and get married." I went to sleep just typing that out. She doesn't take away the romantic parts of the love story but the main characters have a total love hate relationship which I love. This book gives me twisted feelings through the whole thing. I'm glad that two people who have love for each other regardless of their differences can look past it all and "go for the gusto". But I'm looking out for the main character Bella as well. What if one day he can't help his urge and decides to nibble on her. One instant when everything was going fine and great, Edward invited Bella over to his house to throw her a party for her 18th birthday. She's goes to open up her gift and right then in there in front of this whole family of vampires she gets a paper cut. Edwards brother is the newest "vegetarian" so he lets his urge get the best of him and leaps for Bella as Edward tries his best to hold him off. Or what about the time when her best friend Josh turns out to be a werewolf. Another attachment to a harmful animal. These examples from the story are just to show how exciting and almost fearful her writing is that makes everyone fall in love with it. It engages any reader because you will never be bored because the drama just keeps coming.

BOOK EXPECTATIONS

I chose New Moon from the Twilight series as my book. I actually saw the movie called Twilight and I thought it was very detailed and a true romatic story. I loved the amazing twist of a vampire, a beast that kills humans, and Bella, who was a human, be so attracted to each other. Most people didn't like the movie but I must say, that is my kind of movie. But the true die hard twilight fans that I knew said the movie left out tons of details that made them fall in love with Stephenie Meyers writing and the lovely strong passionate details about Edward and Bella's romantic love affair. I thought, "WOW" if the movie was that good and it didn't get that much approval I should pick up one of the books. So I first read Twilight and finished it over the summer and what can I say I fell completely in love with the book more than I did the movie so I went and bought the second book the very next day and here I am now blogging about it. This book has truely lived up to my expectations because it was a New York Times best seller and when I hear really great reviews on a story I am extra critical to hold on the author's every word but with this book I really did hold on to every word the author wrote because it gave me that " butterflies in your stomach" love feeling that I usually don't get from novels very often.