Nostalgia

Oh to return to the days before worries. Before pages-long essays, college admissions, and the self-actualization of growing up. To return to a time when your free time could be spent playing and your work time would hardly leave the school you slaved away at. Now the school has tightened its chains, and all you can do is try not to blister under their weight. The only thing that can heal these scars is the ointment of rest, away from the vicious maw of work. But the maw too has grown large enough to swallow you whole, you are now prey. You have always been prey, to the beast that is society. 

-Austin

A special thing about growing older is that you start remembering things you haven't remembered in years from a simple action, maybe an item, or even a person. 

Gaining friends at a young age might return to you, especially if you still know these people. That’s a thing in my school, not only your reputation as a middle schooler, but also, your past reputation or actions in elementary school. This starts to get interesting when you take a group of dramatic middle school students, who went to the same elementary school and put them all into the same room.

One of the main things I’ve heard is that one of the girls, let’s call her Taylor (to keep her identity safe), used to be pretty annoying, to say the least, and got on a lot of people's nerves. But recently she’s been edging her way into friend groups in the most harmless ways, which is interesting because these middle schoolers are letting someone who they used to hate because of how annoying she was, suddenly into their incredibly close friend group. 

Let’s just all say that middle schoolers in my generation may never have any hope of common sense. It doesn’t make sense to me how they can completely change their look on someone within a few weeks…

-Charlotte

Entering into the 2nd book of the 5 book graceling series, this is a prequel of sorts to the prior novel. This book takes place 50 years before the events of the first book. Again written by Kristin Cashore this book is called “Fire” and the description goes like this: “Fire lives in the Dells, where the forests are filled with spies and thieves, and where rebel lords plot against the young King Nash. Irresistible and wild in appearance, Fire is the last remaining human monster. She is equally hated and adored for her unique ability to control minds. But she guards this power, unwilling to steal the secrets of innocent people. Especially when she has so many secrets of her own. Then Prince Brigan comes for her. The royal family needs her help. Far away from home, Fire begins to realize there’s more to her power than she has ever dreamed. And more to dream than she has ever allowed herself.” Many Characters in this story and their complications will unfortunately have to be left out of this retelling, but a good chunk will be explored in the diagram. This diagram is very spoiler-heavy however, so if you want to read the book look away now!  

SPOILER WARNING

As mentioned, Fire is a human monster living in the Dells. The Dells and their neighboring kingdom, Pikkia, Live beyond the mountains north of the previous story, completely barring these lands from each other. Monsters as they are known in this world, are normal-looking animals that are uniquely colorful and have mind-altering auras that make them attractive. All monsters, even ones that look like herbivores, eat flesh and favor monster flesh the most. Fire Lives near a local lord and his son, who raise her like a family while her father is away at the King's court. He had been killed by her a few years past in a tragic accident, that she caused. After years of living remotely and having recently visited the former queen, she meets the current King and general of the land, King Nash and Prince Brigan. The king does not have the mental fortitude to be resistant to her powers, and the Prince hates her for her father wanting him dead for years. Due to rebellions forming she reluctantly goes to court and is shortly joined by her old friend and sometimes lover Archer, the lord's son. Eventually, he goes off in search of a mysterious boy, with mismatched eyes and words that hurt fire just hearing them, but entrances others who hear them. At a ball where she kills one of the lords staging a rebellion and his son, she gets kidnapped by the boy and his crew in the dead of winter. He slowly takes them to his fort, and this is when we truly realize that this is the awful King Leck of the previous book. She defeats him, trampling him with a horse in the middle of his villainous monologue, and ritually burns the body of her dead friend, because he was killed by Leck. Upon returning to the royal family, losing two fingers in the process due to frostbite, they end the war with a battle, and spare the Rebelling lady’s life and unborn child. Throughout all of this slowly Brigan and Fire have been falling in love, and they get married. Fire never has a child, thus being the last human monster to ever exist.

-Austin