Boekverslag John Marsden

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Datum ingestuurd:	22 april 2002
Niveau:	3 vwo
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Waardering:	Currently 3.11/5 1 2 3 4 5 3.1/5 (38 stemmen)

Titel:	So much to tell you
	Ik heb je zoveel te vertellen
Auteur:	Marsden, John
Jaar van uitgave:	1987

Auteur:	Marsden, John
Geslacht:	man
Nationaliteit:	Engels
Populaire titels:	2001Checkers / Dam (5) 1994Tomorrow, when the war began / Morgen, toen de oorlog begon (8) 1987So much to tell you / Ik heb je zoveel te vertellen (13) 1991Letters from the inside / Lieve Tracey, lieve Mandy (10) 1994The dead of the night / Het holst van de nacht (1) 1995The third day, the frost / Een kille dageraad (1) 1997Burning for revenge / Het uur van de wraak (1) 1996Darkness, be my friend / De avond valt (1) ... meer

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The primarily facts:
Author: John Marsden.
Title: So much to tell you.
Edition: 1987.
Amount of pages: 119.
Reading time: 3 days.
Read on: 5 April.

Expectations beforehand:
I always like diary-stories so I thought it would be a nice book. I really like the subject, a girl in a boarding school is interesting. The book is about a girl of my age so that’s easier to understand and nicer to read.

The first reaction afterwards:
I really thought it’s a beautiful book. And also very understandable because it’s about a girl of my age. So I can understand some things she is going through. I can pretty good imagine how Marina must feel.
I also think you can learn a lot of this book especially when you are about my age.
This is a very good book, you can learn a lot by reading this book and I like it because it’s understandable and compelling.

Short summary of the subject:
The whole story takes place at a boarding-school in Warrington, England. It’s in this time, the present.
The main character is Marina, she’s very shy, she never talks. She’s also pretty insecure and emotional. That’s because of all the things she has been going through.
An other important person is Marina’s father, he’s in jail and hasn’t got any contact with marina and her mother anymore. But after a while he writes letters with Marina. Than there is marina’s mother who also hasn’t got contact with Marina anymore. That’s because when Marina’s parents had a fight her father wanted to shoot her mother but he hit Marina, so Marina was mutilated and she had to go to the hospital (that’s why her father is in jail). Since that moment Marina doesn’t talk anymore, never, not one word. Sometimes she wants to but she just can’t.
The whole book is written like a diary. By reading the stories Marina wrote you get to know what she has been going through. So in a fight between marina’s parents she gets mutilated. marina goes to the hospital and her father goes to jail. It doesn’t go so very well in the hospital. Marina’s mother can’t resist the silence of Marina and she sends her to a boarding school. Her mother has e new boyfriend and she leaves Marina for him and goes to New York. At the boarding school she has nobody, no parents, no friends. All though she likes it there, she thinks it’s much better than in the hospital or at home. In the holidays she goes to her grandmother. There is only one girl at the boarding school who Marina likes, Cathy. They become friends by writhing letters because Marina still doesn’t talk. She likes it to go to the chapel where she can be alone.
Twice in a week she has to go to the school psychologist where she also says nothing but the school psychologist talks to Marina about her son and her own problems.
At English class they get the homework from Mr. Lindell to write a diary. He promised not to read in it but he’ll only look or they really write in it. This is perfect for Marina, now she can writes all her feelings and thoughts down. So this is the way you get to know everything about Marina’s life because that diary is the book “so much to tell you”.
On Cathy’s birthday Marina gives her a present which she had never expected. She starts crying because she likes it that much. Cathy invites Marina to spend the holiday at her house. Marina likes it there a lot.
One day she wrote a letter to Cathy in the chapel or she could go to her father. He stayed in the hospital in Buntleigh that time which is close to Cathy’s house. That was okay and Marina goes to the hospital with the train on that Monday.
When she is in the hospital she doesn’t see her father. But than she sees him, they recognize each other her father calls her by her name. And the first time in years Marina talks. The only thing she says is; I got so much to tell you….

Exercise A. The attributes of Marina:
Marina is a person who has really strong attributes and a character. She has her own way of handling problems. She never talks that’s why people think she is shy and quiet. Marina is also very emotional, by the accident she has participated she’ll never talk again. And her parents leave her so she has nobody left. Marina is uncertain because she has a poverty on self confidence. Also because she’s very touchy.

Exercise B. Ten years later…
I’m Marina’s father and as happy as could be. Seven years ago I got out of jail and I never had to do any work for the government again. One day I went to the mall and I met the most perfect woman in the world, her name is Sarah. We went out for a drink and the rest followed. Now I’m very happily married and we still live together. Marina comes almost every weekend by to drink a cup of tea. It’s going very well with her now. Marina is studying medicine and I’m very sure she’s going to make it. Marina and I have a very good relationship, better than ever before. I think she has forgiven me now and understands that accident never had to happen and it never was my plan to mutilate her. Marina also just talks again but not with her mother anymore. We haven’t seen her in a very long time I believe she married the guy in New York and they have a child. Marina is mad at her because she didn’t helped her with her problem but just send her to a boarding-school. When she would have taken good care for Marina, Marina wouldn’t have stopped talking for such a long time. Well I hope for her that she is happy in New York with her new husband and child cause I’m also married again so I can’t be mad at her for that. And I’m also sure everything is going to be okay with Marina. So there did come a happy ending.

Final editing:

The subject:
I thought this was a very interesting subject because I can understand what Marina is going through. The subject wasn’t really recognizable because I’m not in a boarding-school and I still have my two parents. But still the book is understandable because it’s written like a diary and than it’s easy to understand her feelings and thoughts.

The events:
I also liked the events because they aren’t boring or something. You can follow very well what’s happening by the diary-form. The feelings and thoughts are definitely more important than the events. The events were exciting, beautiful, sad but not boring. the events were also pretty realistic. There were also definitely shocking events in the when for example Marina gets mutilated.

The persons:
I think the persons are very good described, that’s mostly in a diary. So you can follow their thoughts. I recognized some attributes of Marina in myself like she’s also very touchy.

The construction:
The story was pretty easy to read, there were only a few words which I didn’t understand. The construction, diary-form was also pretty nice to read so you don’t have very long stories which become boring. I expected the ending because it would be very strange when Marina would stop talking for the rest of her life.

The usage:
The usage wasn’t so very hard, sometimes I had to look up a word in the dictionary but that was all. There are a lot beautiful expressions in this book. I’ve chosen this one;

Pale as ice you passed me by;
I wondered what you really felt,
And waited through the changing times,
To see if you would one day melt.

I thought that ice would met with warmth,
But there were things I did not know:
The sun can touch the outer layers
But does not reach the deepest snow.

Winter sometimes seems like years,
Summer’s sometimes far away,
But winter always turns to summer,
As surely as does night to day.
I thought this expression is very, very beautiful so I would like to remember this one.