Reader Response: Teen Angst

 Teen Angst is an autobiography on Ned Vizzini (one of my favorite authors) early years and applying for high school and his personal experiences. I have read two other books by Ned and in my personal opinion are some of the greatest books I have read in my fourteen years of life. I think he gets teens perfectly and he understands the struggles and hardships of our generation. I don't think many authors can do that. So it talks about Ned applying to high schools in the city and the specialized test and all that fun stressful stuff that makes teens wanna pull their hair out.

  In the first chapter Ned is in 7th grade and is starting to think about high schools. He hears about the specialized high school test and immitaly depends a test prep book. His dad buys him one and immidatly starts to study his butt off. As a kid living in New York City this is enforced as soon as you get into middle school. So many decisions specialized high school, your grade average, what school suits you best. And then their is all that personal stuff like where are your friends going? , which schools you really want stuff like that so Ned knows first hand on the pressures of applying to high school.

   Ned studies his butt off aces the specialized test and gets into Stuyvelson. He describes it as everyone looks out for themselves, no one else, people with higher grades were basicallly worshipped. It didn't sound like an ideal enviornment for me, well for me at least. In high school your supposed to have all these experiences and find out who you are and who you wanna be and if your studying all the time that isn't living that's boring. You need balance work and social life. You can't spend your whole life studying that's not what life is about its about enjoying yourself but working toward what you want to accomplish.\

  I know I already said this but I think Ned really gets this generation and the struggles of getting into high school and staying in high school. It's alot of pressure no matter where you go your always going to face social and academic problems no matter what. so the lesson is have some fun but also work hard because you can't get anywhere in life by just having fun you need to put some work in but you can't spend your life in a text book you need to live.

reader response:paper towns

  The book "Paper Towns" tells amazing tale of a computer dork and a popular exciting girl coming together on a journey. Margo is a your average popular girl. Or so we think. She goes out to parties, has a boyfriend on the football team and her popular friends. Q computer geek and his two computer friends Ben and Radar. Q has been crushing on Margo since forever but never really had the courage to talk to her even though their in classes and neighbors. Until one night Margo jumps into Q's bedroom and needs to borrow his car and go on a quest or some errands for Margo. They leave fishes at her best friends stoop breaks windows and exposes he boyfriend who is cheating  with her best friend. Next day she dissapears and this is not rare she has run away many times but this time shes 18 and schools gonna end soon and she leaves clues for Q and he's on his own trying to find her. What's Margo trying to say this time?

  Margo is a little bit attention seeking I think. When her and Q were doing "errands" she said "I couldn't taken someone else but I didn't I took you you should be happy." It's like she took pity on him cause she thought he was a loser or a geek and had no life and that was the most exciting thing that's ever happened to him, and maybe it was but you still don't say that to a person especially if you value another persons feelings. Also she has ran away so many times so it seems she wants attention from someone.

  I wonder why Margo did choose Q she could have just stayed out of trouble just comforted her boyfriend about cheating , and break up with him, told Becca she didn't wanna be friends cause she was cheating with her boyfriend. But she had to go the attention seeking way and run away. Why do people look for that way? Do they really need someone to pay attention to them every single second of the day?

  This book I think really defines what it is to be growing up and how teenagers need attention sometimes and they are complex and misunderstood. And they are going to disovbey  what they are told simply because it's like it's programmed into them.