All following posts will be for The Coming-of-Age Novel course, no more 20th Century Novel posts will be made.

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Howie's murderous intentions vs. me, the reader

      First and foremost, The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker is a weird book. With its interesting way of describing mundane life in an office and excessively long footnotes, it takes a dive into the world of our main character, Howie. Howie is a sometimes relatable character, who we see delve into the most lengthy stories about the most boring things anyone could imagine. The first chapter with his shoelaces, no one would necessarily think about their shoelaces that much, heck I don't even know if I've ever had a pair of shoelaces break on my shoes in my lifetime.       I would have said Howie is completely relatable if it weren't for the footnotes. On pages 108 and 128 we see Howie's darker side, where in the first footnote on page 108, we find out Howie stabbed his best friend at the time in the neck with a pair of scissors. Why did he stab him you ask? He stabbed him over the 64 pack of crayons his friend had gotten, and wouldn't show Howie how the p...
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Sag Harbor and the harsh reality of a summer job

 In Sag Harbor, Colson Whitehead does a great job narrating the idea of growing up, and reaching the stage of adolescence where you start to gain more responsibilities, such as being able to pay for your own things. To get this money, one must work, and Whitehead's experiences growing up that are detailed in the novel are quite similar to many teenager's experiences in the workplace. Over this past summer, I got my first summer job, and was eager to work to get my own money, as Benji does the same in the novel.  Now, looking back I don't know what I was expecting. I know I wasn't expecting sunshine and rainbows, but whatever I was expecting, I should have expected both better and worse of some certain aspects. Food service jobs? Good. People who come to buy things from food service jobs? Less good. People are who truly make the work experience bad or good, and I dealt with my fair share of bad over the summer, just as Benji does in the novel. Dirty clothes, coming home ...
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Mental Health Represented in Books

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