Wounded Their Ship And Quinn And Blake example essay topic

Full Tilt By Neal Shuster man This is about a guy named Blake and his brother, Quinn... Blake is an over-cautious teen. His younger brother, Quinn is the opposite. Blake was in a bus accident when he was very young and was the only survivor. Although he has no memory of how he managed to survive the event, it has drastically shaped his personality. One day Blake, Quinn, and their two friends Maggie and her boyfriend, Russ go to an amusement park together, called Darian Lake.

They are clueless when they arrive as to how this event will change them forever. At the park, they ride on various rides. One of the rides was different from all of the others. It was the Kamikaze. It was a roller coaster, brand new to the park. As Blake got in line for the ride, his friends were right beside him.

They were all excited to go on the new ride, but Blake was terrified. It reminded him of the time he was seven and his school bus got into a accident and went screaming over guardrails, almost to his death. He did not want to ride this new ride, however his friends pushed him to do it. Once on the ride, he was safely harnessed in and the ride took off, screaming down steep hills and loops. Everything was fine, until the structure started to shake and beams started to give way!

There was now a twenty foot gap in the track! Blake thought it'd be the end of him and his friends, when he saw it. The coaster dove straight down into the gap, about to hit asphalt. Then the next thing Blake knew, the ride had ended. He waited in his seat, wondering what had happened. The ride had been built to give way like that.

The coaster had still been on the track, when it fell through the big gap. He turned to the track and saw the beams that had fallen rising back again. It was all a stunt and everyone else had known about it except him! Blake went through the rest of the day shaken by it, until he met a girl at a game booth. He thought she was so beautiful and flirted with her for a little while. Her name was Cassandra.

Then he won a prize from her booth, a stuffed bear. Inside the bear's pocket, was an invite to another amusement park. He showed his friends, then looked back for the girl who'd given him the bear. She was gone and a new person was standing in her place, in control of the game. The new person didn't know what Blake was talking about, when he asked the man about the girl who'd been there.

It freaked Blake out a little bit, that she could just disappear like that. Later that night when Blake and his brother, Quinn got home, they were greeted by an unexpected guest. It was their mom's newest boyfriend. He stood beside their mom. Him and Blake's mom wanted to announce something together.

Quinn and Blake didn't trust this guy and were most appalled to find out that the announcement was their mom and her boyfriend, Russ's engagement. Quinn and Blake talked about it a little later, but only got themselves into an argument over it. It was later that night, when Blake heard there was something wrong with Quin. He was taken to hospital in a coma! Blake was afraid, so he got all his friends Maggie and Russ together to talk. Blake told them he'd come up with an explanation for Quinn's coma.

He said that his invite to the park was missing and Quinn had stolen it and gone there somehow! Of course, his friends thought he was nuts, but he insisted on going to the park to investigate. So they drove to the amusement park. The park should have been closed at such a late hour, but it was open and running when they got there.

Blake wanted into the park, but the guard would not let him in without an invitation. When Blake insisted his little brother was in the park, the guard heard someone talk over his headset and let him in, while explaining the rules of the park. The rules were: you must only ride seven rides and you must ride them all by six-o'clock. Once inside the park with his friends alongside, Blake saw someone that looked kind of familiar.

It was Cassandra! She owned the place! He went to talk to her, but she'd gotten on a ride. So Blake and his friends got on the ride too.

The ride was a Carousel. Once the ride started, everyone had hopped onto an animal. This Carousel wasn't just horses or anything, no it was all different animals. As the Carousel went faster and faster, it was getting harder to hold on. Then Blake noticed the animals start to move their legs and become alive!

Soon he was riding a real lion in a stampede! He saw one boy fall off of his animal and get trampled, so he knew it was real. Eventually Blake fell off his lion. He made it out of the herd though. Maggie and Russ were riding a giant bird and they'd ridden the bird out as well.

All of them were now in a giant field. They walked around confused, until they hit their next ride, the bumper cars. With almost no hesitation, they jumped into the little cars. The cars immediately started turning from bumper cars into real cars. Maggie and Russ were in one car and Blake was in another. As soon as they were driving, other cars started to bang into them.

Some cars were bigger then others. In fact, there were all different cars driving around. They were all trying to bump each other and kill each other. The kids all seemed to love it. It was like they didn't know the danger in it all. It was all just a ride to them.

Kids started crashing their cars and dying all around Blake. All of the sudden, Cassandra showed up in a car beside Blake. Her car was huge and she was a merciless driver, who ran over anyone in her path! She tried to kill Blake with her car, but Blake was a good driver and got away from her. In the meantime though, he had no clue where Maggie and her boyfriend had gone to.

He didn't even know if they had survived to this point. Blake drove the car away from the other cars to a restaurant. There he asked where the next ride was, but the person he talked to would not tell him. Then he saw Cassandra sitting in one of the booths there. She had tried to kill him, but he wanted to know where his brother was, so he went up to her. He questioned her for a long time and got no straight answer.

She would only say that his brother was indeed there in the park and that every ride had a way out. After that he set off to the next ride. The next ride he saw was a swinging boat ride. Blake had already endured two rides. He needed to go through five more to get out of the park, so he jumped onto the ride.

Once on the ride, the ride turned into a real boat on real water. There was even a whale in the water. It was a giant Blue whale! The whale was trying to sink the boat! Suddenly Blake saw his brother on the boat as well. He ran to him.

He told him that there was a way through every ride. Quinn didn't care though. He didn't want to know any way through this ride. He just wanted to have fun! Blake wouldn't stand for it though. He told Quinn that they needed to somehow find a way off the ride, or they'd both die.

That's when Quinn got serious. He explained to Blake that he wanted to end it. He wanted to die. And what better way to do it, then on a ride. Blake had never realized just how miserable his brother was until that very moment. Blake wouldn't let his brother die though.

Suicidal or not, Blake was getting Quinn off of that ride! The ship was going to sink soon, so Blake got Quinn and made him jump off of the boat, onto a rock in the water with him. The boat sunk with everyone on it not long after. Quinn and Blake made it safely to shore. Then Quinn decided to go his own way without Blake, for he still sort of had a death wish within him. Then Blake ran into Cassandra again.

Blake talked with her for awhile. Blake should have hated this woman for all she had already put him through, but her beauty, mysteries, and everything about her somehow attracted him. He talked to her for awhile and before leaving gave her one passionate kiss. He knew it was wrong. He knew all of this in this place was wrong, but he'd done it anyway.

Then he left her, to go on to the next ride. The next thing he saw was not a ride, but a mirror maze. Blake thought that a maze of mirrors couldn't be that bad, but as soon as he entered them he realized just how bad they were. Bones were scattered all over the floor, kids were running and screaming in all directions, he was hopelessly lost, the mirrors gave horrible images of himself, and worst of all there were scary creatures within the maze. Every way he turned was a dead end. Finally Blake went through a particular section of the maze and saw a monster come towards him.

The monster chased him for a ways, then Blake fought with the monster. He fought with her until he realized she was not just any monster, but Maggie the monster. Maggie had been turned into a monster! Maggie explained that she'd fallen through one of the mirrors and her boyfriend had run away from her scared. The mirror had turned her into the image she'd seen when she'd looked through the carnival mirror in the first place. The mirrors didn't just give bad images of them though, but they gave bad images of what you thought as well.

It would show you the worst possible picture of yourself and also show you the worst things about your personality and thoughts. Maggie had also fallen thought a few more mirrors, all making her feel worse and worse about herself. She was a basket case and a wreck. Blake tried his hardest to comfort her though, because he secretly did love her, even as a monster. So he kissed her and she stopped crying and looked almost happy again. She agreed to go on through the place with him, holding his hand.

Blake thought that maybe if they went straight through all of the mirrors they could get out that way. Maggie agreed, so they walked on. Each mirror turned them into something more horrible, but they pressed on. The last few mirrors they went through together made them look better again though, so they knew they were nearing the end. When they were at the last mirror, Blake let go of Maggie's hand and went through.

When he turned around, finally out, he saw that Maggie was not behind him, but still in the maze! She didn't know where to go! She turned the wrong way and didn't walk out. She was lost within the maze again, calling out Blake's name hopelessly.

Blake felt horrible for losing her, but he had to press on without her. As he walked through the park, the next ride he came to was a ride he recognized. It was the Kamikaze roller coaster! He was not going to get scared and not go on the ride though. He was going to ride it! Once on the ride, the roller coaster climbed higher and higher up the track, until it was miles above the ground.

Then it took a steep plunge towards the ground. Suddenly it was no longer a roller coaster! It was an airplane, spiraling down! Every person on the ride now flew their own personal plane. Blake pulled up on the plane's joystick fast to avoid crashing into an aircraft carrier below. The aircraft carrier shot bullets at the planes, so many died, but Blake made it out.

He had to parachute out of the plane to survive though. Once he hit solid ground, he was back in the middle of the park again. Then he saw Russ. Blake went over to him and talked to him for awhile, but decided not to tell him about Maggie. Then as Blake and Russ started to walk through the park, Russ hit Blake hard with a steel pole! Blake fought back, then grabbed the pole from Russ and shoved him to the ground.

Russ explained to Blake that Cassandra had promised to let him go if he killed him. Russ said he was sorry, then saw a sign saying Exit. He ran to it, but it was a trap and Russ fell through the ground. Then Blake saw Cassandra near by. She told him that no one had ever made it that far.

That just made Blake even more determined to go further. The next ride was not easy to choose. There were so many rides to choose from. Finally Blake settled on the Wheel of Ra. The ride had an Egyptian theme to it.

Once the ride started, Blake and the other riders were shifted into another dimension, where there were Egyptian guards and slaves that were once riders like Blake. As soon as everyone saw the guards, they tried to run away, but many were caught except for Blake. He escaped and hid. Then he saw something he'd never expected; the king there was Quinn!

He ruled the place! Blake went to his little brother and told him that they should leave, but like before, his brother refused. Quinn was happy being the king of Egypt. Blake warned him that it could be a trap, but Quinn didn't listen, until he had something to eat and fainted.

Quin was taken back and prepped to be mummified. Meanwhile Blake was taken to a cell. In the cell was an illusion of his father. Blake didn't fall for the trick though. For he knew it was only to distract him from finding a way out of the cell. Blake went to the cell guard and convinced him that he could get out of the park, but only with the guard's help.

The guard pitied the boy and let him out of the cell. Blake and the guard then went to help Quinn. They helped Quinn escape, but not before Cassandra saw them and ran to try to stop them. She failed though, because other riders and Egyptians helped to hold her back. They'd all heard that Blake was on ride six. They wanted to help Blake go on to ride seven and be the first to make it out.

Cassandra was afraid that Blake would make it out because if anyone did, it would shut down the whole park. To get out of that ride, Blake and Quinn would have to climb a really tall pyramid. The ride was shaking and coming apart now. An earthquake made the ground tremble. It was so hard to climb with the ground shaking that Blake fell off of the pyramid! He fell through a crack in the ground.

He fell into the works of the ride. In the works, Blake saw his friends Maggie and Russ. They were slaves now, working the machinery of the rides. Then Blake saw Cassandra.

She offered him a deal. The deal was if Blake were to quit trying to get out of the park, she'd let him rule the park with her. The offer was tempting, but Blake could never rule a place that kept people there against their free will. He turned down the offer and started to try to climb up the works and out of the ground.

He finally did and saw Quinn waiting for him. They would go onto the next ride together now. The next ride was a Tilt-A-Whirl. When the ride started, again they were thrown into another dimension. This time it was a space dimension and they were in a space ship. All of these dimensions always had something to do with their lives Blake and Quinn had noticed.

This ride had things from Blake's room in it, like a giant poster that they had to go around with the ship. Even the space ship itself was the same one on one of Quinn's compact discs. All this stuff, looking so familiar, made them realize that Cassandra had known what they were both thinking the whole time and had taken all of the rides they'd encountered out of their own thoughts. That's when it occurred to Blake, that the only way to beat Cassandra was to not let her know what they were thinking and do something totally unpredictable. Cassandra caught up to them in her space ship quickly. She started firing weapons at them and wounded their ship and Quinn and Blake fired back.

They wounded her ship worse and her ship went down. Then Quinn and Blake did something Cassandra wouldn't expect. They closed their blast shield on their ship so they couldn't see and flew through a mine field. The ship's shield was strong and held the ship together until they were out. Then they opened their shield to see a turnstile dead ahead.

Suddenly Blake was no longer afraid though and put his hands up in the air, like you'd do on the fastest, wildest roller coasters. Quinn did the same. The ride ended after the turnstile. Then Quinn and Blake both climbed out of their ship, which had turned back into a normal Tilt-A-Whirl pod. There was a clock near the ride. It said that they'd made it through all seven rides in time.

So Blake yelled for Cassandra to let them out. Cassandra came up to them and told them that only Blake had made it through seven rides, but Quinn had made it through only five and now the clock was chiming six o-clock. It was too late for Quinn. Blake would not leave his brother, so he made a deal to go on one last ride, so that she'd let them all go.

She agreed, but only if he made it through the ride alone, would they all be free. Blake went to the next ride. It was a bus ride. It was the bus he'd been on, when he was very young.

It was the bus that had crashed and left him as the only survivor! Blake did not have any memory of how he'd survived though. He'd blocked those memories out of his mind. He'd need to remember now or die trying. Just then, Blake heard his teacher yell for him to open the back door. Blake was the only one who could get to the door in time.

He couldn't open it though! The bus crashed and burned! Then the ride started again. The ride kept restarting itself over and over again. Blake died with the rest of the people on the bus each time. Then Blake remembered that the rides function by people's thoughts and memories.

Blake couldn't remember how he'd escaped the bus, so he couldn't do it again. Then Blake thought of something; if he'd escaped that meant he'd opened the back door after all. Then it all came rushing back to him! He had opened the back door and jumped out, just before the bus had gone over the guardrails. That's why he'd been he only survivor. With that recollection, Blake threw the back door open and jumped out of the ride.

He'd made it through! Everyone was free from the park now! Suddenly Blake was asleep, waking up in his car. He had been unconscious for some time. Fireman were working to get him free from the car. Maggie and Russ were both scraped up outside of the car.

Apparently all he'd been through was a dream and they'd crashed on the way to the park in the middle of the night. Blake and his friends knew that wasn't true though. They all remembered what they'd been through. Blake called Quinn. He was already awake from his coma in the hospital. Full Tilt is one of the most impressive books I've read in years.

The writing was terrific and intelligent, and the characters were refreshingly real and alive. The author made frequent use of strong, powerful metaphors that resonated throughout the entire book, and he did this while creating remarkable tension that would drive any reader from the first page to the last.