ASHFALL

Ashfall

John Walker

Ms.Hill

9th Gifted LA/P1

14 August 2015

Target and his friend kill Darla's mom

Personal Reflection

Bibliography

Conflict

Alex meets Target,

and is nearly killed by him

My own view on this book has to truthfully be that while it's good, it's certainly dark. This is just my own opinion but I was literally scared when I learned rape was in the book, and became skeptical as it was on the reading list. I was actually debating on reading such a dark book at all actually, but I gave it a chance in the end. It was a good experience and a good book overall, after all, sooner or later I would've read something darker I'm sure. The book itself to me is actually very well written and very adventurous on what it would include. I have to give it a 4.5-5 start myself, but that's just my opinion.

To go more in depth, I feel like this is similar to Harry Potter the Deathly Hollows as it was darker that most of the other of the series as you hadn't needed to deal with death as much in the other books, and it also had a very apocalyptic view. I've never been one to actually read a book where people would kill for food, or where it was so dark. Watching or playing something like that is one thing, but when you can imagine it and your mind makes it darker, it's so much different.

Alex kills Target and his crone,

Alex and Darla move on

The first kind of conflict we have is man vs man. In this book it is mostly people who try to kill others and take their provisions. An example of this is the battle against Baseball Bat, Chain, and Tire iron.(Ashfall pg.49-52)

Man vs Nature, or to be specific, man vs ash/man vs survival. Like I said before ash is a big problem, and fighting against it and death by starvation and dehydration is a hard battle. The previous battle is a good example, but if you need another, look at Ashfall pg.112 where it says, "We only had some snacks with us. We've barely had any food for a week."

Another conflict is Man vs Himself, and in this book the best would probably be Alex's psychological struggle against the way things are now. He has to learn to steal and hoard food if he wants to survive, and that can be messed up when your friends are starving. A good example is reading Ashfall pg.69-76

The last conflict is Man vs Society which in this case can just be represented as Alex's neighbors. Now while you may ask, "What about the whole end of the world stuff?" Well we already have Human vs Human. Anyways Alex's neighbors, Darren and Joe, are actually a gay couple as you can see when it says on Ashfall pg10, "Just then Joe, Darren's husband, ran up beind him, carrying a three foot wrecking bar."

Alex meets his uncle and family

and is put to work to help with food

A super volcano in Yellow Stone National Park gos off and a flying rock hits Alex's roof, Cedar Falls falls into despair and chaos

Setting

Charecters: Antagonist

Charecters: Protagonist

Literary devices

The End

The first is obviously a simile that we have in Ashfall pg.20 where it says, "It went on and on, machine-gun style, as if Zeus had loaded his bolts into an M60c with an inexhaustible ammo crate."

Next is an allusion that we can use from the previous similie as you are not given previous information of Zeus, you either know he throws lighting to smite stuff or you don't.

Another is hyperbole in Ashfall pg.51 where it says, "His face exploded."

Lastly is an idiom in Ashfall pg. 9 where it says "You look like three-day-old-dog crap. You okay?" because he doesn't literally mean that, he just means he looks bad or tired.

Plot Graph

click again please

The book known as "Ashfall" was made by author Mike Mullin, and published by Tanglewood Press on October 11th 2011 (first published September 27th 2011) and publicated on 10/16/2012. This book is know to be a dark apocalyptic adventure for teens and adults and is of young adult, science fiction, & fantasyfiction genres

(As stated by NPR books).

Ashfall has various settings such as Yellowstone National Park, or the location of the volcano which explodes, Cedar Falls, Iowa, also known as Alex's (and his family's) hometown, The Edmunds Farm, the location in which Alex meets target and is nearly killed, and Warren, Illinois, the town near which Alex's uncle and his family live.

Make sure to also keep in mind that this happens abojut modern day seen by the devices and speech they use.

All these places are known to have various affects on Alex's mentality as seen in the book.

If we look closely we can see that there are actually multiple antagonist. The most important I would have to say that we have 2, one being Target, and the other actually being the ash itself.

Target is a charecter who came later in the book and is an escaped criminal who nearly kills alex in their encounter whi is why he would definately be one of the main antagonists. The ash is constantly pushing down on not only Alex, but every other charecter as well as it constantly makes them fight for survival and litterally makes the journey much harder than it should be.

If you actually think about it, the ash is what started it all, from the fight for survival, to Alex meeting target. The ash if anything can be seen as nature and can be put with as an antagonist as it is always against alex. An example of this would be in Ashfall pg.53 where he's trying to run away and it says, "With everystep, my feet sank into the gooey mess. It was less like running than doing a fast, high-step march.

Target is a cocky person because he thinks that he is stronger than everyone else,he believes that he is invincible. Also, he was associated with the death of Darla's mother, Gloria (he killed her by shooting her with a shotgun), and is known for wounding Alex in the quote in Ashfall, "I threw my right arm to up to block and caught him on the wrist. That saved my neck, but the momentum of his blow was such that it slid off my elbow and the blade thunked into my right side just below my armpit."(Ashfall pg.123)

In our story we can see that our protagonist is a boy named Alex Halprin, who is a fifteen year-old (later sixteen year-old), and also main character, narrator, and principal protagonist of Mike Mullin's novel, Ashfall. Alex is seen as an ordinary teenager who is more of on the nerdy side if anything else. We can also see that from the quote in in Ashfall when Alex states, "A couple geeks and a board game I might manage; a great party with hot girls and beer would be beyond me, sadly."(Ashfall pg. 3) From this we can see that Alex is not very popular. He is also a decent fighter as he used to be a black belt thought he does lack confidence. We can also see that alex is a very reflective person seen in Ashfall where is says, "If I'd known I might never get to argue with her again, maybe I would've replied. Maybe I would've hugged her instead of turning away."(Ashfall pg. 2)

"The scariest apocalypse is one that COULD HAPPEN" - Michael Grant