The Jungle

    The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, begins with the wedding of two Lithuanian immigrants, Ona Luzoskiate and Jurgis Rukdus (I probably butchered their names, no pun intended), near the meatpacking district of Chicago in 1906. Many of the guests gorge themselves with food without paying. Ona becomes concerned about how much the wedding will cost them, and Jurgis vows to pick up another job to make extra cash. However, the jobs in the meatpacking district of Chicago pay far below any reasonable minimum wage, and the workers suffer from horrible conditions, as the companies put profit ahead of worker safety.
    Jurgis and his family go on a tour of the meatpacking district, and even the shocking images there of the animals suffering and being slaughtered in the abattoirs were enough to dwindle Jurgis' optimism. It is revealed that the government inspector that is supposed to supervise the carcasses and check for diseases, such as tuberculosis, often lets several of them go unchecked, out of sheer laziness. The spoiled meat is doctored in secret before it is sent to the canning department.
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING MAY BE SOMEWHAT GRAPHIC IN CERTAIN PARTS, DEPENDING ON WHO YOU ARE
     Jurgis' first job is sweeping the entrails of slaughtered cattle and pigs through trapdoors. Although the stench is horrendous, he earns just over two dollars for every twelve hour work shift. Jurgis even ends up enjoying his job, and he doesn't understand how the other workers hate their jobs and bosses. He does not join the labor union, which is lobbying for a reduction in the fast work pace. He believes the other workers are quite simply lazy. Jurgis also discovers that a lot of unfit meat, including calf fetuses and animals that had died of disease, were slaughtered and packed along with the rest of the meat.

    As winter approaches, many of the workers in Packingtown die from hypothermia on the meatpacking production line, literally, their bodies right next to the bodies of slaughtered cattle. The companies failed to provide the workers with adequate heating. Many of the workers also die from disease on the production line. So imagine that, dead people with diseases in their body in an abattoir. There were also some people whose limbs and phalanges fell in to some of the meat... and it was canned with the meat...

    The real estate company has also trapped the family in a scheme involving a house that was advertised as a for sale, but given to them as a rental. Their wedding has also put them over one hundred dollars in debt. The house they were given was also not in the condition in which it was advertised, and is somewhat overpriced.

    Okay, I-I'm sorry, but I can't write the summmary anymore. The book was just so... informative... I honestly believe that it was necessary, because had it not been published, there would be no FDA. There would also be no laws about worker conditions. But it also made me physically ill to read, I'm not exaggerating. Even writing this is making my hands shake. I also did some research on the book, and the president, Theodore Roosevelt, called Sinclair a 'crackpot' for his socialist point of view. I also was surprised at how the immigrants were treated, and it is somewhat sad, because even though we don't do THIS (all of the above) to immigrants today, we still often treat them as second class citizens, which is wrong no matter who you are. I would have to give this book an A+ for informing the public, but also a B+ for making me sick. So that averages out to about an A- I think. I definitely recommend it if you have a strong stomach.

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS

The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green, is probably one of the best books ever written. This review doesn’t do it justice. It has wonderful insight on Hazel’s life, and many teenagers can relate too. (Even if you don’t have cancer.) It’s a young adult, realistic fiction novel, and it is definitely realistic fiction. The main theme of this book is that life happens, and you can’t predict it.

                                                                                                                                     

Hazel Grace Lancaster is 16, and has thyroid cancer. She was diagnosed when she was 13, and was taken out of school for treatment. She hasn’t gone back to school, and her only real contact with people outside of her family is her cancer support group. She goes to the support group, and only has one true friend there, Isaac. Isaac brings his friend, Augustus, to the support group with him. Augustus has osteosarcoma, another form of cancer, and he lost his leg because of it. Hazel and Augustus get to talking, and she ends up going over to his house and watching a movie. While there, Hazel tells Augustus that she really likes a book called An Imperial Affliction, by Peter van Houten. This might seem like a random tidbit, but it will become more important later.

As time goes on, they become closer and closer, but Hazel keeps trying to resist getting attached. She doesn’t want to hurt him when she dies, which she knows is going to happen, but Gus won’t give up. Hazel becomes even more worried about hurting him, and her family, when she is hospitalized for pneumonia. While she is in the hospital, she realizes she does deeply care for Gus, and he admits to her that he feels the same way. Now, Gus wants to do something special for Hazel. He still has a wish from “The Genies,” or the Make a Wish Foundation. He uses his wish to bring Hazel, her mother and himself to Germany to meet Peter van Houten and to learn more about An Imperial Affliction. They go to Van Houten’s apartment, and learn that, unlike Gus, he is not a stand up guy. He never opens fan mail, he doesn’t care about his book, and he is just an old drunk that doesn’t do anything with his life anymore. The book still has much more in store, but I don’t want to spoil it for you!

Usually when I get to this part of my review, I talk about what the author put in the book and what I think it means. This time, I’ll be pulling some information out of interviews that John Green has done, and talk about his opinions there, instead of infer what he meant. In The Fault in Our Stars, Hazel believes that people can hurt the world just as easily as they can help it. That becomes bigger in the end of the book, though I can’t tell you why. When John Green was commenting on this, he said, “Trying to do good is not the same thing as doing good. Many, many people have tried to do good and in the process done harm.” This is incorporated in The Fault in Our Stars, and is directly mentioned by Gus in the end of the book. I think this is completely true. People too often try to help, and they make a bigger mess then there already was. This is only one example of the wonderful things Green put into his book.

I can’t tell you my feelings about this book. I feel like if I choose the wrong word, then this book wouldn’t be given the attention it deserves. Hazel mentions that there are no accurate cancer books in the world, and that authors portray their characters differently then what is true, and it makes it so she can’t read those books. Although I don’t have cancer, I feel like this might be one of the best cancer books now. If Hazel was a real person, I think she would love this book almost as much as she love An Imperial Affliction. This book shows people like me, who don’t have cancer, how difficult it is. It makes you think about how difficult life is for people. You don’t know what everyone else is going through. Keep that in mind before you judge someone.

I love this book. I could read it over and over again without it getting boring. It is clearly on its way to becoming a classic for teens and adults. Everyone needs to read this book, because it appeals to everyone. It’s not just a sappy love story. It’s adventurous, and is heart-wrenching at times. I give this book an A+.