my favourite chapter

Hey guys! 

This is going to be about my favourite chapter of the novel SLAM. 

I´ve finished reading the book and I have to say that I liked it pretty much.

I struggled with finding my favourite chapter because I couldn´t decide which one I like the most. There are some chapters I like, but I usually don´t like one part of those chapters. So it was kinda difficult because I didn´t want to choose such a chapter. 

So I finally decided to present you CHAPTER 20 as my favourite. 

Chapter 20 is basically a look into the future, but it is presented as another future dream of Sam. I like it that much because it´s putting the pieces of the story together and therefore everything makes sense in the end and the novel is finally completed. I had such a great feeling after reading it and it made me looking back to the novel with a smile.

Sam is on the bus with a “pretty girl, nineteen or twenty years old” (page 251, line 3) and he receives a message from Alicia. Sam doesn´t know what to answer because he doesn´t know anything about his actual relationship to Alicia or to the girl. But that´s not that important anyway because they´re just arriving at the Green. 

They walk down the road to a restaurant where they meet Alicia and a boy. It must be their first meeting in this group because they´re introducing themselves to each other. The boy, his name is Carl, is probably Alicia´s new boyfriend and the girl, Alex, is Sam´s girlfriend. The situation is a bit strange for everyone because they don´t really know each other. At least, it is pretty real and that´s likely – think about yourself meeting people for the first time…beginning a conversation can sometimes be really difficult. 

When Alicia asks about Roof, Sam doesn´t know what to say. He just shrugs. Then the girls talk more about Roof and Sam finds out that he looked for Roof this afternoon and Roof and Emily are now with his mum. He first expresses that this must be hard for his mum, but the girls kind of laugh because he is usually managing this situation quite well. To avoid any other embarrassing statements, Sam doesn´t say anything anymore unlike Carl. 

The girls talk about Roof and college. Sam recognizes that Alicia “looked great. She looked happy and healthy, and for a moment I felt sad that I´d made her unhappy and unhealthy” (page 254, line 1-2). Firstly, that was actually really sweet of him and I think it was one of his first sensitive statements in this whole book. Secondly, it makes me feel happy to, hearing that everything turned out good for Alicia. 

That Sam´s life being pretty nice, makes me feel good too. Sam does part-time college and looks after Roof and sometimes after his sister Emily. He stopped skating and I hope that he has also thrown his TH poster away (but I don´t know). Always being in a rush, Sam has a lot to do and that´s why Alex feels a bit sorry for him, but after all he´s happy. I consider that that as one of the most important things in life.

“I hoped we used at least three condoms every time we had sex” (page 254, line 15-16) shows that Sam has learned something from the past and that he´s kind of afraid of becoming a father again. At least something haha.

“There was a lot of work to do, and arguments to have, and kids to take care of, and money to find from somewhere, and sleep to lose. I could do it, though. I could see that.” (page 254, line 25-28). 

Everything will work out. Sam will get along with his son Roof and Alicia and he´ll be fine with his life. It´s good to know that everything will turn out well at the end of a book, isn´t it? I´m glad it ends like that and not with an open ending. 

The two really last sentences “I wouldn´t be sitting here now if I couldn´t do it, would I? I think that´s what Tony Hawk was trying to tell me all along” (page 254, line 28-30) are also pretty good because it lets the whole book look like a round, completed story. The good feeling that everything will be alright stays for longer although the book ends there. 

I hope that you can understand now why chapter 20 is my favourite chapter :)



What I also want to share with you is the movie JUNO.

This is the trailer:

The movie is about Juno, a sixteen-year-old girl who becomes pregnant when she sleeps with her best friend Paulie. First Juno wants to abort the child but then she decides to put it up for adoption. Together with her friend Leah and her parents, she is searching for perfect, loving parents for her child and finds a couple – Mark and Vanessa.Vanessa really wants to get a child but unfortunately she can’t.
Juno and her father visit them and after a talk she decides to give her child to them.
By the time Juno and Mark get closer,  he confesses his love to Juno after a few months and says he wants do get divorced with Vanessa. Juno gets angry and is afraid of not having parents for her child, so she writes a letter to Vanessa which says “If you’re still in, I’m still in. Juno.”
But after a fight, she tells him that she loves him and they become a couple. Just a few weeks afterwards, she gives life to her child. They both don’t want to see their baby, so Vanessa gets the child right away.

Finally, I´m finished with this blog entry and as you know, I´m always looking forward to your comments, so please leave them down below.

Love, Melanie