Hank Reinhart

Hank Reinhart
Parrot In The Oven
Victor Martinez
Realistic Fiction
Just Right
Just Finished

1. I have just finished the book Parrot In The Oven by Victor Martinez. In the end the book got to its main plot which is when Manny joins a gang. All Manny wants is respect and joining a gang is the way to do it. After he finishes fighting the gang which was the ignisation to join, Manny for the first time feels happy in the book, and the gang is meeting tomorrow. The next day it is bad weather so Manny tells his mom he will be playing baseball even though he gave up on that dream of becoming a pro at it. He sneaks over to his gang which is waiting outside the mall. Everyone is really cold and come up with ideas of what to do. Their gang leader shrugs all of the ideas off and goes home to watch TV with his girlfriend. Soon his friend Frankie says they should go home, but Eddie who is the punk of the gang decides to stay. He also convinces Manny to stay with him even though he and his friend Frankie know there will be trouble. As Frankie and the other gang member walk away Eddie and Manny head to the mall. After browsing for a while, Eddie out of nowhere jumps a woman and takes her purse. Manny chases after Eddie startled as the woman calls the police. Manny keeps saying to Eddie slow down but he won't listen. They start to arrive where Frankie and his friend went, and Manny meets this newspaper guy he saw before. The guy says to let him go and Manny does. The police show up and the woman points out Manny to the officer. But the newspaper guy tells the cop Eddie went that way, and the cop forgets about Manny. Manny goes home and finds his sisters sleeping together so he sits on a chair in the living room. Then it hits Manny that this tranquility is all he ever wanted.
2. I thought this book was a very good read. One reason is that there were multiple plots. Instead of there being the main plot, every chapte had its own plot which made the story kind of like little stories in each chapter. I've nevr read anything like it before. Also I thought the author wrote the book very well. He got a National Book Award for this. I think he got that because of the detailed scenes in the book. At times the book got boring and hard to read because of all the detail. Overall though the book would be harder to understand without all the detail. Also the characters played ahuge role. I thought the author described what they would be like in this part of the world. He also put them in the right places at the right time so it made the book better. The author mad ethis a very good read.
3. My theme was hardship. Hardship played a big role in this book especially to Manny. It first starts wth Manny's family. They cause lot of problems for him becuase they ask him to do evrything, or they just beat up on him. One character who gives Manny a really hard time is his dad. His dad is very abusive and always gets on Manny's nerves. For example his father says Manny is ungrateful and is lazy. But his father is the one who is ungrateful to the family because he wastes all their money and can't find a job. Manny also faces hardship because he tries to get respect. He goes out for the school boxing team which is a huge thing, but instead is the water boy. At a dance he tries to get a girls attention, but instead gets kicked out of the party becuase know one knew him. And when he tries to join the gang, they beat him up for the gang ingnitiation.
4. My favorite character was Manny. I liked Manny for many reasons. One is that he delt with everything thrown against him. He would just shrug it off and keep trying to do what he had to do. He also was a helpful person. No matter what he was going to do, he would go help whoever needed it and then get right back to work. He gained a lot of respect that way. And as the story went on he started to stand up for himself and din't let anyone push him around. This adds to the fact that he deals with hardship in a good way. I don't normally like main characters, but in this case I liked Manny a lot.
5. My least favorite character choice changed form Manny's dad to Eddie. Eddie was just like Manny's dad in a way that he would push people around. He was also mean to Msnny. He didn't want Manny in the gang at the first place so he would always bea up on him. and would try to get him kicked out. One way he did this is when he stole the woman's purse. That was an example of Eddie trying to kick out Manny. Eddie also effected Manny's sister Magda. He used to be her boyfriend, but he dumped her and Magda was so depressed that for the rest of the book she just stayed in her room. Eddie was also punk. Whatever he suggested for the gang to do was to jump someone and take their money. I don't think Manny liked that so he tried to stay away from Eddie.
6.  I thought I got the ending spot on. The blurb in he book said that Manny would join again, so when I got to the part where there were 50 pages left I kinda knew what would happen. I also excpected Manny to get in trouble because right when they mentioned Eddie I knew there was going to be trouble. What I didn't see coming was that Manny didn't get noticed and taken in by the cops. ice Manny is very honest I thought he would tell the cop what happened, but instead just kept his mouth shut.