Miss Talmadge’s Psychology Book Reviews 2007
Posted by canjohslib on March 16, 2007
To read the great book reviews submitted last year and get some great ideas, click on “10 comments” below and enjoy!
Posted by canjohslib on March 16, 2007
To read the great book reviews submitted last year and get some great ideas, click on “10 comments” below and enjoy!
Alicia Ward said
The book that I read was called Dreamland by. Sarah Dessen. It begins with a girl named cassandra and her sister caitlyln, whom is the main character of the story. Cassandra the main attention of the family ran away with her boyfriend when it came time for her to go to college. Now leaving Caitlyn the center of attention. At first she thought that i would be great, but i later on got annoying.Especially with her mother knowing more about her life than she did. Later on she found a boyfriend names Rogerson she knew he was diffrent but she liked that about him, he wasnt like a normal boyfriend. Rogerson then started to abuse Caitlyn and she found it hard to cope with. Her friends were there for her even though when she first started to date him they told him she was trouble. The aspects about psychology in this book are abuse, and how when people have been abused how they turned out. I would recommend this book maby for people who know or have been in an abusive relationship, this could maby give them some hints as to help cope or learn from other problems. This is a great book because what happens in this book happens everyday even if you personally havent seen it. I would deffintaly use this book for this project again if it were needed.
Jocelyn said
The book I read was WITCH-HUNT by Marc Aronson. This book is about a few teenage girls who managed to get the entire town to believe that they were begin physically tortured by witches, but later admitted that they were lying. Several thousand men and women were executed due to their lies. Most of the people that were blamed for being a witch were women who were not married and not the most pleasent people in the world. Although the book didn’t say specifically who psychological aspects there were I believe Ann Putnam Jr., who was a teenage girl who was doing most of the blaming, was suffering because her family was poor and she didn’t get a lot of attention from her family because she was one of eight children. Her family had little if any money to spare because they were farmers who were having terrible crop seasons. She just wanted attention and it got worse after both of her parents died and she was forced to take care of her siblings. I don’t believe this book was very good for this project because it didn’t seem to deal with a lot of psychological issues, it was mainly about a few teenage girls who got the town to believe they were being afflicted by witches. I wouldn’t recommend this book. It was boring and a little hard to follow. If you are a highschool student you see this kind of behavior every day with blame and lies. The beginning of the book was interesting, but then it went on to tell about the different trials which were all basically the same.
DanielleSTAR!! said
I read the book called “Smack” by Melvin Burges. The book was a bit unrealistic and I wouldn’t exactly recomend it to anyone, unless you like to read about 15-year-olds hopped on on Heroin. The book basically consisted of two young teenagers that met and fell in love, they were both rebelious although they came from diffrent backrounds. The two begin drinking and smoking ciggarettes and one thing led to another and pretty soon the two are addicted to heroin and are doing nothing with there life except mooching or other wise know as “squatting” off anyone that will give the the time of day. The book was personally boring to me, I didn’t find it intresting, and nothing to amazing happened. The book did help me complete my assignment by being able to complete my guidelines. Im sure some people would enjoy the book, it just depends on whether or not you want to read about two kids with no life that have not only a psychological addiction, but now a physical one as well, it was based on drug addiction.
Kellie said
I read the book “Make Lemonade”,by Virginia Euwer Wolff. It was about a girl named LaVaughn who takes a babysitting job for a 17 year old mother of 2. The setting is in a big city but in the poorer part of it. Everything is going well, but LaVaughn’s mother really does not approve of her job choice. Soon after, Jolly (the mother) gets fired from her job and now LaVaughn is not getting paid. She decides to stay with the babysitting job until Jolly finds a new job, but it is hard to find one. Soon Jolly and LaVaughn become close friends and LaVaughn tries to help her find a job. At the end of the book, something bad happens to one of Jolly’s children. This book covers depression and abuse. This book helped with this project b/c it gave a very good example of how abuse can effect a family and close friends. This book is a good book but when you read it, it isnt as good as you think and you even want to put it back but you feel bad for Jolly and you feel like you want to help her. And the ending is amazing and sad.
Dana said
The book that i read was “Angela’s Ashes” by Frank McCourt. This novel was about a little boy who suffers to make it through his childhood life. Things seem to only get worse for this family, but they still manage to stick together and make the best of it. After moving to Ireland this family suffers from poverty, a lack of food, and you see how his mother has to go as low as begging for food and anyother needs. As your reading, you become a part of this poor boys life and you wouldn’t even be capable of thinking of living the life that they had to. Living in Ireland has only been a disaster for Frank, and as he grows up he realizes that he wants to go back to America. Frank’s struggles that he goes through in the novel may cause a huge impact on his life when he gets older, and due to the lack of support from his parents could hinder the man that he becomes in his later life. Not only was this book very intriguing, but it was a great help to completing this project. It covered all of the aspects needed to complete the project and at the same time it was a great novel. I would definitely recomend this book to anyone who is doing this project next year. There maybe other books where the main character might have a greater psychological problem, but by reading this novel you can see how this will have a mental impact on his life. Even though it is a fairly long novel, you will enjoy every bit of it.
Alicia Ward said
The book that I read was called Dreamland by. Sarah Dessen. It begins with a girl named cassandra and her sister caitlyln, whom is the main character of the story. Cassandra the main attention of the family ran away with her boyfriend when it came time for her to go to college. Now leaving Caitlyn the center of attention. At first she thought that i would be great, but i later on got annoying.Especially with her mother knowing more about her life than she did. Later on she found a boyfriend names Rogerson she knew he was diffrent but she liked that about him, he wasnt like a normal boyfriend. Rogerson then started to abuse Caitlyn and she found it hard to cope with. Her friends were there for her even though when she first started to date him they told him she was trouble. The aspects about psychology in this book are abuse, and how when people have been abused how they turned out. I would recommend this book maby for people who know or have been in an abusive relationship, this could maby give them some hints as to help cope or learn from other problems. This is a great book because what happens in this book happens everyday even if you personally havent seen it. I would deffintaly use this book for this project again if it were needed. It shows you first hand of how people are abused and how other people notice it.
Sarah said
The Book The painted bird by Jerzy kosinski was aobut a young boy who lived through World war II in eastern germany and the things he had seen are things no human should have to. The lost young boy travels from town to town with no one wanting to keep him because they thought he was a Gypsy. War has an effect on people which makes most of the people go insane and morality is WOSH! out the window. My book covered postramatic stress which haunts the lost boy even after all he saw.I would recommend this book to someone who is not light hearted or stomached. There are some pretty explicit seens in which i would recommend you have a bowl next to you. OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!…Another book which i have read is A Child Called It. This would help someone with this project because its the bruttal treatment of a young boy who lives through Severe beatings from his mother and just all the things that he lived through messed with his head and left him a lost Man.
Blaine said
The book that I read was called “Juice”, by Eric Walters. It’s about a high school student and the football team he is on. The boy, Michael had won them the Division II Championships. He led the team in sacks and tackles. A man named Tony comes and introduces himself to him and the team. He tells them that he will be their weight trainer for the summer. He works with them every day. Tony and his contacts supplied them with brand new equiptment and supplements for them to get bigger and stronger for nexts years football season. As the weeks go on he tells Michael that he was giving him steriods and if he wanted to continue using them. Michael says yes and goes on about his training. A little while later Tony gets caught along with his contacts. Michael stops using them and goes on with his life. The aspects about psychology in this book is drug abuse. Steroids makes you wacko. It made him wacko. He had temper tantrums all the time. Is attitude towards others was negative. He freaked out on a older lady in a grocery store, telling her to shut up. I would recommend this book because it was short,talked about weight lifting, and football.
Gwen said
I read the book called “The Beast” by Walter Dean Myers. It takes place in Harlem, New York where we meet Anthony Whitherspoon who is going out with a girl named Gabi. Anthony is very bright so he is going to Wallingford Academy in Connecticut for his senior year of high school. When Anthony came home for winter break he noticed something different about Gabi, and he found out she was using drugs. So Anthony helps Gabi through the trials she is going through to get her help to stop using drugs. The aspect of Psychology that is covered in the book is drug abuse. Gabi was struggling so much with her situation that she turned to drugs because it gave her the feeling that everything was okay. I think this book helped me to complete my project because it was very interesting and it deals with real life situations. I would recommend this book because it shows a real life situation of how drugs can not only affect the peron who is taking them but also the people who are around that person. It showed how quick drugs can change a persons life from knowing exactly what they want to do with there lives to not even knowing who they are as a person. This book really opened my eyes to the serious affect that drugs can have on a person. I would recommed the movie running with scissors because it deals with the area of drug abuse.
Brooke said
The book I chose was Finding Fish. It was about a foster child named Antwone Fisher that lived with the Pickett family for most of his life while growing up. They were not the nicest people,but he was happy to have a home and three other foster kids there that he became friends with. One of the Pickett’s daughter Mercy was his friend too and the only one of the Picketts to be nice to him. Antwone felt he was going nowhere so he decide that one day they would read about him for something important and good. later on after the Picketts moved so they kicked him out he had to go to George Junior school where he graduated from high school then went to and adult shelter where he ran into to trouble so had to leave then joined the navy.After he tried to find his family. the aspects of psychology covered in this book was emotional and social needs.this book helped me complete my project by having the emotional and social problems I could write about. I would definitly recommend this book to other readers because shows you no matter who you are or where you are in life you can still make something of yourself if you put in some effort and work real hard. Another book I would recommend would be Child called it because the little boy has an unbelivable story. It’s very sad but very good.