Book #  34                          Words: 75943                                          Date: 14/Apr/2015

Title: Ashes to Ashes                                                                           Author: Jenny Han                              

Genre ~ Fiction Type:  Realistic Fiction      

• Opening Sentence:

     I’m high up in the rear balcony of Holy Lady of the Sea, and it is pure agony.

• Favourite word / phrase / sentence:

We ride in silence, except for the swish, swish, swish of the wipers as they push the tiny snowflakes off my windshield.

• Vocabulary and new terms (with part of speech) and definition:

Compensate: Give someone something typically money, in recognition of loss, injury, or suffering

• Reflection, Connection & Personal Response:

When I took a first good look at this book, I knew that it was one that was depressing. My sister had recommended me this book as she thought that it reminded her of something that she had read before. I took it and started reading. Along the way I had noticed that it was similar to a widely watched and read series. Pretty Little Liars. I thought that it was similar because of the fact that it had a person that ended up dead and friends unite because of this incident. Instead of having a person killing people, it was just death. But I think that it is similar to the Pretty Little Liars series. In this book I read about death, friendship reuniting, a girl that was broke that had no family, and also trouble between relationships because of lies. Each girl had a memory of Rennie that was personal that they didn’t want anyone to know. This book reminds me of when these two specific people in my school died because of certain reasons. It took everyone in surprise because it was so sudden and no one could have said bye to them before they had passed. I think that this book taught me to not keep secrets from anyone and to not make anyone feel bad about themselves or feel bad because you did something to hurt them. I think that this book is an amazing book with tragedy and also friendship. These four girls have to go through tough times when their friend died and with that they came together to become friends and grieve together. I think anyone should read this as it teaches lessons that cannot just be taught by saying that you cannot do this.