Conner Sloop > Recent Status Updates

I like that the book is always interesting, it never dulls and gets boring. I was not too fond of the length of it because it was hard to keep up with the necessary number of pages to read. I think someone who likes to read high amounts would like this book because it is quite long. The other thing is that the words aren't that difficult to understand but they are very impactful.

I think Tara's life is really looking up from where it was at the beginning of the book. She went from working at the junkyard and helping her mom with being a midwife to going to BYU and "might be accepted to Cambridge for a PhD." This is surprising because she didn't attend any school until college and taught everything she knew.

There are unspoken rules of being a survivalist. Luke disagrees with the rule of working no matter how big or strong you are. Tara got told to work on a big, dangerous machine but Luke said, "It's going to take her head off" so their dad had someone else do it.

I noticed Westover has had many terrible personal experiences that forced her to grow up quickly. One of these is when her brother caught his pants on fire. Westover "tended to him alone" for a long time even though she was only 10 (Westover 72).

I noticed that the author often foreshadows and then goes back to add detail. For example, in chapter 4, she says, "My brother Tyler... fell asleep at the wheel" (Westover 31). Then goes back to explain how they got into such a horrific crash.