The Shack: Setting and more

     The Shack takes place in many different locations, but one location stands out particularly. It takes place on a campground in the wilderness of Oregon. It doesn't seem eerie bit throughout their experience on the campground, a few things make this campground unsafe. At first the family was having a great time roasting marshmallows at the blazing fire, and horseback riding through the hills of Oregon. But all this family needs is one occurrence to make this trip go down hill.

      At first everything was peaceful with some of Mac's kids in the water on a canoe, and the others playing around in the fields or coloring at a wooden picnic bench. But, all this family needs is a flip of a canoe, causing a slight distraction.  The disappearance of Mac's daughter occurs during this time span, nowhere in sight. What will happen next? What does the setting have to do with the disappearance of Mac's daughter?

The Shack: Description

     In The Shack by Wm. Paul Young, there are many descriptions throughtout the passage. One description in particular stood out to me. It says, " He had gratefully accepted Officer Dalton's offer to take his children down to a local diner for some food, and now, sitting down on the edge of the bed, he was swept helplessly away in the unrelenting and merciless grip of growing despair, slowly rocking back and forth. Soul-shredding sobs and groans clawed at the surface from the core of his being."
     I especially enjoy the last sentence in this phrase because it gives a great description of what is happening. You can hear the "soul-shredding sobs," and you can feel how the "groans clawed at the surface." You can feel the despair Mackenzie (Mack) feels during this terrible expiernce, and how this is a tremendous event in his life, just based on the descriptions used.
     The author uses words like, "unrelenting" and "merciless" to descrbe the feelings aswell. These words provide a clear desription to the reader aswell as gives the reader an oppurtinity to feel the expierence the character in the book is going through. This is a great way to endulge the reader into wanting to read more.
 

The Shack about the author

     
                  


     To start off my year of reading, I choose to read The Shack by:  Paul Young. It seems to have a creepy appeal to it and a unique title picture on the front which made me curious to read this book. I was also a bit curious to read this because I had heard good reviews for this book by friends.
     

      I did some research about the author because I was curious on how he came to the conclusion of this topic for his story. Paul Young was born a Canadian and raised among a Stone Age tribe by his missionary parents in the highlands of what was New Guinea. He suffered a great loss when he was a child as well as a young adult . He now enjoys "wastefulness of grace" with his family in the Pacific Northwest. He had originally wrote The Shack for his six kids and his close friends but his friends urged him to get it published. Young was turned down by 26 publishers but eventually it was published by a new company called Windblown Media in 2007. 

Pure by Julianna Baggott

        The theme of Pure by Julianna Baggott is to stay strong and believe in yourself but you don't have to go through it alone, others will help you find your way and you will be surprised on who will be supportive throughout your journey. No matter what you may conceive as a weakness, may be strength with the help of others. The theme can be explained in the sentence, "Follow your soul. May it have wings"( Baggott 45). As well as this sentence, Julianna Baggott describes the theme by saying, "Some of us will produce offspring with mergers that make us stronger, and others will die out. This one's still good to eat"(Baggott 203).

       In every book, there is at least one character from the plot that will blossom throughout the passage. These characters have experienced conflicts that have helped encourage their change and helped form their resolution. For instance, in my book Pressia was a character that developed overtime throughout the text. She first started out kind of cowardly by hiding and not standing up for her beliefs and was like a butterfly being restricted in its cacoon, but towards the end, she stretched her wings and became a strong butterfly with no one restricting her for standing up in what she felt was right.

http://dreaminginbooks.blogspot.com/2013/02/review-pure-by-julianna-baggott.html

            In this blog it is very descriptive over the plot and basic points of the book. It also discusses some of the characters and their traits and personalities. It also shares the characters perspective and important information about them. This blog show the bloggers point of view and what they though about the book.