The book I read was House at the End of the Street. This book is about Ellisa, a rebellious teenager who falls in love with the mysterious boy next door. Little does she know there are far more twisted secrets hidden behind that door than she could ever imagine.
Summary of Chapter 1:
Four years after the brutal double murder down the street Ellisa and her single mother prepare to move into their new home in an upscale neighborhood. After the divorce of her parents, the relationship between Ellisa and her mother, Sarah, has been very strained. Moving from a small, ratty apartment outside Chicago, her mother thought the move to a nice suburb in Seattle would bring them closer. Unfortunately, the price of the house they're moving into would be far too expensive if it weren't for the gruesome history of the neighbors in the woods behind their house.
The story is (supposedly), in the middle of the night the mentally ill daughter of two parents awoke in the middle of the night and murdered them both with a hammer. The son (Ryan Jacobensen) of the dead couple (who was staying with the aunt at this time) still lives alone in the house. It's rumored the girl drowned in the dam but her body was never found, some believe she lives in the woods.
The idea of living so close to where a disturbing homicide was committed creeps out both Ellisa and Sarah but they try to ignore it. At dinner, tensions bubble between Ellisa and Sarah when the mother trash talks the divorced father that hasn't made any form of communication with Ellisa in over a year. She begins to wonder if the new house could really change anything for them.
That night Ellisa ventures out to the woods out of curiosity where the neighbor's house stands. She is overcome by her paranoia of stories of the deranged girl in the woods and decides to turn back.
Theme:
The theme of this book is assuming who someone is based on first impressions and inferences can lead to one's downfall and that of others.
In the beginning of the book Ellisa only knows the rumors surrounding the son that lives in the same house his parents were murdered in. Even though Ellisa knows that the other neighbors have slanted views on Ryan Jacobensen because his house brings down the values of the other houses and even they don't know him well, but she and her mother have a hard time shaking the feeling that there's something wrong with him.
When she first meets him she realizes that even though he's shy and quiet he's very normal and she realizes she has romantic feelings for him. When she gets to know him better she realizes he is far darker than she ever imagined and she and her mother face life threatening consequences.
Another example of theme is when Ellisa meets Tyler, a resident of a nicer part of the neighborhood, she assumes he is just another snobby rich kid. When Tyler invites her over to a party/ "meeting" for a school club, the events that take place change her views of him drastically.
A quote from the book that supports this is "Whatever first impressions she'd had of him- that he was a little bit of a goody-goody, that he was entitled, that he was a snob- so much better than what she thought of him now. She'd never been so repulsed by someone in her entire life." (Blake 39).
This proves the theme because it shows that her initial impressions of Tyler were wrong. If she had known him better than her first impressions of him were then she probably would not have put herself into any kind of unstable situation with him.
Fun Fact:
The House at the End of the Street is a novel by Lily Blake based on a screenplay by David Loucka from a story by Jonathon Mostow. Now a major motion picture!
No comments:
Post a Comment