About Rachel Cohn

Rachel grew up near DC, and attended Barnard College, Manhattan at the age of 17. She graduated with a B.A. in Political Science, thinking she wanted to be a journalist. Instead, she moved to San Francisco - where Gingerbread was set - to work at a law firm and began writing. After moving back to New York City, Gingerbread was published followed by a number of other books, often about a strong, witty female protagonist. Rachel Cohn (born 14 December 1968 in Silver Spring, Maryland) is a young adult fiction author. Her first book, Gingerbread, was published in 2002. Since then she has gone on to write many other successful YA and children's books, and has collaborated on three books with the author David Levithan.
From the time I learned how to read and write I was always trying to create stories. I grew up surrounded by books and by family who were educators – the desire and encouragement to write came readily in my household. When I was a kid, I loved books by Judy Blume, Ellen Conford and E.L. Konigsburg. (I loved Judy Blume’s books so much that I used to actively wish I would get scoliosis so I could be like Deenie.) My favorite books were: Harriet the Spy;Deenie; And This Is Laura; Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret; Anything for A Friend; From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler; and Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth. Oh, and anything by Jackie Collins or Sidney Sheldon.

Final Blogging Assessment

Over the course my writing in my blog posts have grown from in my third post it said ”The reason I started reading True Believer by Nicholas Sparks because I have always been interested in reading a book by Nicholas Sparks for a while but I never got the chance. Now for our independent reading novel, I thought this would be the time to start reading his books.” This post involved no textual reason behind me choosing this book over all Nicholas Sparks’ other books. My quality of writing from that post has improved in my new posts like in my sixth post when I said “If I were to as about his family he would probably respond with “Even his highly emotional Italian mother didn't believe that true love could blossom overnight. Like his brothers and sisters-in-law, she wanted nothing more for him than to marry and start a family, but if he showed up at her doorstep and said that he'd met someone two days ago and knew she was the one for him, his mother would smack him with a broom, curse in Italian, and drag him to church, sure that he had some serious sins that needed confessing.” In this post it shows me using more textual evidence to prove my point more than my previous posts just stating what I think and not using evidence to prove it. From post to post my writing has gotten much better as I went through and understood the book more and what I can really write. The quality of my blog post has also improved with the type of information I put in it including the actual quotes from the book. Over time I think my writing quality has greatly improved.

  An area of struggle that I had during these blog posts at the beginning of the trimester was to know when to use the quotes and evidence to prove my point better. What I did to overcome this struggle was to pay more attention to the details while actually reading the book to find the good quotes to better improve my understanding what I was writing in my blog posts. Another area of struggle that I had while writing the blog posts was using the appropriate language so more people could better understand what I was trying to explain in my book. What I did to overcome that struggle was to write it in the language a person in my grade would understand, which helped me understand, helping me to be able to explain if anyone needs an explanation of what I’m writing. A strength I had during the blogging was the length of the posts having to be at least a paragraph. During the blog posts the length of my posts were the how long they were supposed to be. Mostly all my post an explanation for the point I was trying to make. I think my strength helped me have better improvements and get better at the blog posts.

What's Next?

Now that I have finished True Believer, my next step would be to continue reading Nicholas Sparks books. The development of the story as it went on made me want to read more of his books. Also his books are highly recommended by many different people. As I read this book I noticed the elevation of diction or word choice varied as the book developed. The tone of the book also varied on the situations happening to the main character. Throughout the book his language used to describe different things didn't change much. The next think I will probably do is also read different books that are similar to Nicholas Sparks' writing style. Overall, to find and read book similar in writing style of True Believer.

Conversation with Jeremy Marsh

If i were to talk to the main character of True Believer, Jeremy Marsh, the conversation would probably mention his job and his family. If i were to as about his family he would probably respond with “Even his highly emotional Italian mother didn't believe that true love could blossom overnight. Like his brothers and sisters-in-law, she wanted nothing more for him than to marry and start a family, but if he showed up at her doorstep and said that he'd met someone two days ago and knew she was the one for him, his mother would smack him with a broom, curse in Italian, and drag him to church, sure that he had some serious sins that needed confessing.” Jeremy Marsh was born into a very large Italian family, but loved them with everything. To Jeremy his job taught him a lot like “I think it happens to everyone as they grow up. You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you've known forever don't see things the way you do. And so you keep the wonderful memories, but find yourself moving on.” It would be about those two things since those are the main things in hos life and in the book.

Best thing about True Believer

The best thing about True Believer is that throughout they whole book , something unexpected will happen to the main character. Another would be the different vocabulary and use of diction from page to page. Also so far in the book the setting has changed many times varying from the city, country, and the suburbs. The characterization is really said all at once it shows how the main character is changing over time.The conflict is also many different kind, person to person, person to world, and person vs fate. The story is continually just great and keeps you interested. The theme really has been developed in many ways. True Believer is just over a really good book all together.

Vocab Post

"For the last twenty minutes, he'd been directing the traffic into the parking spots and watching in disbelief at the procession excitedly making his way towards the door." ( Sparks 145). In this quote there is a word that isn't familiar to me which is procession. But by looking at the quote I'm guessing it means the way the cars are moving. When I looked up the definition it means a number of people or vehicles moving forward in an orderly fashion, as of part of a ceremony or festival. 

When it says "Scores of cars, parked haphazardly, noses pointing in every direction as if planning a getaway." (Sparks 148). In this quote haphazardly is the word that I've never heard before. But I think it means at an angle. When I look up the definition it actually means randomly: in a random manner. 

The vocabulary varies very much throughout the whole book, those are just some examples. True Believer has a strong sense of vocabulary in it.

Why did i ChooseTrue Believer?

The reason I started reading True Believer by Nicholas Sparks because I have always been interested in reading a book by Nicholas Sparks for awhile but i never got the chance. Now for our independent reading novel, I thought this would be the time to start reading his books.Also since I have begun this book it started out by describing the main character like his appearance and what he currently does. The first page also starts by using a descriptive way to say where the book starts off and where the main character lives. I also chose this book because the story line and just by reading the first page and the summary given by the author. True Believer really seemed like something i could possibly start to get into reading. This book helped me sort of figure out the things i enjoy while reading. Also, so far in this book i'm getting into it, it is full of surprises on each page.