Character example essay topic

419 words
John Marsden's A Killing Frost passes all three om tests (and please forgive my purposefully haz focus on "good writing', but I must have som quirks as a book reviewer!) Sensory detail pervades this novel of war, told fro the point of view of a teenager who, with he friends, becomes a partisan against an intractablenemy that has invaded her homeland. Th homeland in question is Australia, and we ar treated to a gorgeous anthology of landscapes an how they affect the characters, from the dee Outback to farmlands, to shore lands to paddocks, thills. The Australian terrain is a character all in itself sometimes an enemy, as the characters strugglthrough the bush, but also a friend that hides th troop of heroes from numerous enemy patrols Throughout the book, I could see the characters breaths in the frosty morning, feel the chill of th autumn wind, hear the terrifying sound of a approaching enemy helicopter, and feel th exhaustion of someone struggling in choppy water By "honest portrayal of human activity', I mea writing about a niche group of humans's convincingly that a reader or audience mem becomes away with the feeling that they have share an insider's look into the lives of a group of people Think about Saving Private Ryan: many thousand of us who were never there now know a little bit o what it was like to land at Omaha Beach on D-Day to experience the pain, fear, confusion, and panic owa rAnd Mr. Marsden has done something like this Over and over again, I found myself reactinphysiologically when the characters dodged patrols planned attacks, and tried to survive. I felt sorry fo them when they were captured, felt thrilled at thei successes. This is hard to do – and I appreciate ifullyAnd the "good writin'?' Well, Mr. Marsden paint great characters: Ellie, the inwardly frightened bu outwardly heroic female narrator; Kevin, th burnt-out former POW; Robyn, the surprisinglhardy quiet one; Fi, the beautiful and surprisinglequally resilient city girl; Homer, the ever-read planner; and Lee, the depressive and jumpy rover always on the goTh is book doesn't just contain well-writtecharacters that you care about, but also situation and storylines that grab you and don't let go. One othe best-written episodes, in which the teenagcharacters manage to greatly hinder an enemy-hel harbor, kept me glued to the book for three soli hours.

I hardly noticed that I had ingested ove 100 pages of fiction – I was that engrossed.