True Friendships: "Someone Like You" by Sarah Dessen

Yamiles Urena

January 6, 2011

Period 4

       The Bildungsroman novel “Someone Like You” by Sarah Dessen was published May 1, 1998 by Viking Children's Books. In this book, Halley and Scarlett are bestfriends and have been for years. Halley is a type of quiet, shy, sidekick girl while Scarlett is outgoing and makes all the decisions. Throughout the book Halley along with her bestfriend both go through common teenage experiences that cause for Halley in the end of the book to be a stronger and more independent person. Halley and Scarlett go through a lot such as from Scarlett boyfriend, Michael, being killed, to Halley getting into a relationship with a boy named Macon and to Scarlett ending up pregnant by the end of the book with Michael's baby. They experience all of this together. Scarlett's pregnancy is soemthing that Halley finds to be actually a very important thing because of the change it has made in her life. Scarlett and Halley bicker, don't always agree and don't always have the best things that happen to them but at the end of the day their wonderful, true friendship will last forever.

       “When I looked down at Grace, I was overwhelmed. She was our year, from the summer with Michael to the winter with Macon. We would never forget.” (Dessen 278) Halley says this quote as she was living in the moment of Scarletts new born, Grace. I find this quote very significant because Halley because from everything they experienced and went through, Grace Halley Thomas was it. She was like a new chapter in both Halley's and Scarllet's lives.    

Roar Notes

Yamiles Urena

November 15, 2011

Period 4

In the book Fish T.J Parcell was a 17 year old boy who went to jail for robbing a placemat with a toy gun. When he was younger, before going to jail, T.J did about everything and anything bad; barely went to school, drank and smoke illegally, paid for sex and so on and as forth. But then at age 17, T.J got to experience consequences for his action in prison for an unknown but long amount of time. In the beginning T.J got some often advice and support from his older brother (who also went to jail before) basically about how to deal with and survive time in prison. But as it got further in the book, Parcell came to be on his own. He was alone and abused physically and sexually regularly by two characters in the book, Chet and Slide Step. Because of this, Parcell started to often doubt his sexuality, questioning whether he was straight for sure or destined to be gay. Parcell finally realized the truth when he and an inmate, Paul, met and hit it off. Paul got Parcell through a lot of things and they both felt inseparable from each other. The two were so in love that it was reported how much time they were spending together and Paul was sent to a different facility. This separation broke Parcell apart and it shattered him even more when he found out after he and Paul planned to escape together he did it without him and was even caught and sent to solitary confinement. T.J. Was finally sent to a control center as consequence for even planning the escape with his lover. By the end of the end of the book, T.J Parcell made one year in prison.

"The day Paul escaped had been March 3, 1979. Exactly one year since I first came to prison. (Parcell 336) In this quote, T.J Parcell was sent a Control Center for taking part in planning an escape. He was writing different stories about what he went through in prison, about meeting Paul and how they were in love, and he just wished that Paul would of gone to get him like they planned so they could of went off together and he wouldn’t of let him get caught like he did. This quote really interests me just because of how strong it is in being the last sentence of the book. It tells how through everything Parcell experienced in prison, he had approached one whole year of many to come.