Thursday, January 17, 2008

Beautiful Stranger: Top Ten

Michelle Domke

Mr. Hatten

English 10

January 16, 2008

Top Ten

1) The plot of my book Beautiful Stranger by Zoey Dean. It is about two girls who get board of Los Angeles, so they move out to New York. Best friends Anna and Sam, Sam’s fiancĂ© is going on business to New York. Anna, originally from NY has a house there. So Anna and Sam decide to go to NY to live in Anna’s house. They wanted to escape from Los Angeles’ fast past life. In New York they meet Anna’s grade school friend, Logan. Immediately they connect and reminisce on old times. Logan and Anna are attracted to each other. They date but end thing because Logan’s father owns a hotel in Indonesia, and goes there. The book leaves us with a cliffhanger ending leaving us wondering if Anna will go with him to Indonesia.

2) The setting of this book travel across the United States, from New York to Los Angeles. In Los Angeles it is a very busy place with lot of commotion. It gets chaotic with party scenes and clubbing. All about appearances and being in the party scene. In New York it’s a lot more homey and friendly with cozy atmosphere.

3) A main event was when Anna loved Ben, but had the choice of Logan. She left Logan in his limousine, when Logan handed her a ticket to go to Indonesia with him. She walked off only to find, her ex-boyfriend, Ben against the wall with her ‘good friend’ Cammie. She then realized that Ben was not the guy and ran after Logan. She hurried to the airport with her plane ticket to meet up with Logan. She didn’t know for sure if Logan was surely on the plane, but she took her chances and got on.

4) A main character would be Sam. Sam moved from Los Angeles to New York. She is a bit insecure and has a lower self esteem because of her looks. She has been dating a guy named Eduardo for a while. She was expecting him to break up with her, but she received the surprise of a lifetime and he purposed to Sam. This boosted her self esteem greatly.

5) Another main character would be Anna she is beautiful, confident and intelligent girl from the east cost. She went to Los Angles to be with her friend Sam and also to reinvent herself. In the process met Ben in L.A. and quickly developed a relationship with him. Things started to crumble for her in Los Angles when Ben broke up with her she was devastated and immediately felt the urge to return home and that’s when the plot plays out.

6) Cammie is another friend of Sam and Anna’s she grew up in Los Angles and is extremely wealthy. She dated Ben before Anna and broke up with him (that’s when Anna started to date him). Ben had an amazing idea of a club with a complete vision in mind that needed to be funded. After he broke up with Anna he started to seek Cammie’s company again he pitched the idea to her and it flew. She took millions of dollars out of her trust fund to back him and to build Bye, Bye, Love nightclub. It was a huge success not only financially but personally considering they got back together after the venture.

7) Money is a plays a huge role in this book. Everyone has money they basically live and breathe money. All the characters in the book are shaped by their money and their lives are focused around their money. It’s very Paris Hilton like in the sense that they know no boundaries.

8) A motif in Beautiful Stranger is ulterior motives. For example Sam has an ulterior motive for going to New York she told Anna she was going to go to comfort her and to get away from L.A.’s crazy life but in reality she just wanted to go to spy on her fiancĂ©, Eduardo, and see if he’s really on a business trip. Cammie also has ulterior motives for financing Ben on his dreams of owning a night club she wants to get back together with him because she has just broken up with a boyfriend and it hurt her deeply so she wanted to feel better about her self by hanging out with Ben and thinking as little possible about her ex boyfriend.

9) A motif in this book is like in math a negative for a positive. For example Anna lost Cammie as a friend because she was a back stabber. But she gained Logan who is the love of her life. So I guess in the end the things worked out for her.

10) Living you life a pre determined life is another motif. That comes out throughout the book. For example Anna had always known she wanted to go to Yale and she finally got in but Ben shot her down by telling her she was just living out her patents’ dreams and not her own he also told her that she was not her own person and that made her doubt her self. That’s when Logan came into play and told her she could do any thing she wants.