For the average person, this may not be the easiest novel to connect with.  However, this novel can be connected to many movies like The Perfect Storm and Titanic, in the sense that they both have to do with being isolated in the middle of the sea, and have to do with the ship sinking. Furthermore, this novel could connect with other stories like The Cay, or Apollo 13 in the sense that they both explore isolation.  But it would be difficult for someone to personally connect with this story.

             Overall In the Heart of the sea story is an interesting story. The plotline is somewhat bland, and after an enraged sperm whale rams the Whale ship Essex, the storyline soon falls apart. However, there are some interesting parts, for example        “With barley a pound of crackers left, the crew dared to speak of something that had been on everyone’s mind, weather they should eat, in stead of bury the body.” This quote is a good example of how Philbrick shows how desperate the crewmembers were after their ship sunk about 1400 miles away from South America.  It is an interesting read, especially at times like this.  There were many exiting parts. For example when the ship was rammed, this go the slow story going.  Before the Essex sunk, the story was quite boring, but soon people started eating dead bodies. Overall the first half of the book is quite boring and bland, but after the climax, the book starts getting tip-of-your-seat, heart-pounding interesting.

            The Heart of the Sea contains many literary devices that make it worthy of literary recognition. Many colorful similes, metaphors, and personifications are used. For example: “ as darkness approached on the first day, the wind built steadily, kicking up a steep, irregular chop.”  In this one sentence, there are three creative personifications that add some pizzazz to the text. There are however, some parts of the story that are flat and bland. Unfortunately this takes away from the novel. At points of interest the story is able to come to life with a plethora of similes, metaphors, personifications, ironies and much more.

            In the Heart of the Sea challenges the thinking of readers.  It makes one think, “What would I do in a situation like this?” it makes them question their actions, and expands their minds. For example: (see quote paragraph 2) it makes one wonder “would I rather eat a dead human, or die of starvation?” this novel puts the structure of the human mind to the test.  The countless taboos that the crew performs are only part of the novel. This novel makes people see life in a new way, and thank that whaling was illegalized. This novel wasn’t only a source of entertainment; it was an experience as well.

All in all In the Heart of the Sea is a well-crafted novel that is known to many as “worthy of literary merit.”

In "Doe Season", Andrea wants to become accepted in the all-male group she hangs out with. Yet, she feels alienated and lonely because she seems to be the odd one out in the group. This alienation is noticeable at the start of the story when she expresses her dislike for Mac. Mac teases and pulls pranks on her. She believes Mac is stupid. This shows Andrea's feminine side which she tries hard to conceal.

Another instance in "Doe Season" when Andrea feels alienated was the men are talking about deer. She comments that she sees a deer behind their house. Charlie Spoon reasons it is because deer instinctively know when the hunting season is. Then they all laugh about which makes Andrea confused. The whole conversation about deer makes her feel out of place.

The primary concept of the story revolves around Andrea's relationship with his father. Andy wants to please her father. Her father takes her to a hunting trip to test if she can be a part of the man's world. Her father asks her to shoot a deer and then made her watch as he and Charlie Spoon gut the deer. At the cost of displeasing her father, Andy could not deny the fact that she has to remain true to her identity. She chooses to be true to herself in the end as symbolized by running away from the assembly of men gutting the deer.

In "Doe Season", there are a number of symbolisms such as the sea and the forest. When Andy talks of the sea and how it reminds her of mother's love for it, she admits hating it which is one clue that she does not want to be associated with femininity of any kind. The sea symbolizes womanhood and the forest symbolizes manhood. Andy expresses extreme dislike for the sea and an interest of the woods. She never really likes the woods per se but is fascinated by it.

To show the contrast of how she feels about the sea and the forest, she sees the forest as deep and immense, while she refers to the sea as huge and empty. This implies that Andy sees the man's world as a impressive and fascinating while that of a woman's is meaningless and empty.

Doe Season ends with Andy watching “her father's knife sliced thickly from chest to bell to crotch” (354). When Andy's father begins to gut the deer, Andy has an epiphany. She realizes that, no matter how much she tries, she cannot become part of the male society. She then runs away from everyone. This gesture of turning her back and fleeing from her male companions shows that she finally accepts the fact that she is different from men. Unbeknownst to her, the transformation within her is already complete. Then she listens to the sound of the wind which aptly reminds her of the “terrible, now inevitable sea” (354). The sea now becomes inevitable, owing to the fact the she recognizes she can no longer deny her true identity. She turns from the woods. which suddenly became strange to her, to the calling ocean, heeding her real destiny- that of becoming a woman.

The main character of this story is an old man named Santiago, and the other two main characters are the boy who is Santiago's friend, and the huge fish Santiago catches. In the beginning of the story the old man hasn't caught a good fish in eighty-five days and the only thing keeping him alive is the young boy who is his one true friend. The old man never loses faith that there is a big fish out there for him and he just has to keep fishing enough to catch it.

During most of the story Santiago goes out in his boat and hooks a huge fish and is being carried by it. The only companion Santiago has is his mind and the fish he is trying to kill. Probably the only thing that kept the old man going was thinking of his hero De Maggio the baseball player. Whenever Santiago was getting to the point of give up he always thought about if De Maggio would and that would make him struggle on.

When Santiago finally catches his big fish he has to tie it to the side of the boat because it is larger than the boat itself! As Santiago finally starts his journey home he is satisfied but worried about the shark infested waters. When he enters the shark infested waters many sharks attack his fish and he does his best to kill them all but only gets a few. Eventually when he gets home his fish is ruined and gone.

All together this is one of the most intense and sad books I have read in a long time. It shows the thoughts you think instead of the actions you take in a situation. It shows the courage of an old man on his last string of life trying to achieve one more great thing.

Although apparently confident in her ways and indifferent to the other girls' bullying, Moira secretly wishes to fit in. And yet, her overpowering insecurity leads her to distrust the affection that is unreservedly hers and to sabotage the love and attention she believes to be unworthy of.

The sea alone makes Moira feel in her element. Other than her remarkable intelligence and proficiency in sciences that win her a scholarship and give her an advantage of sorts over her peers, only the serenity that washes over her by the seaside abates her profound unhappiness and feelings of maladjustment.

Having been shunned and avoided by Moira since her birth, Amy - eleven years her junior - tries incessantly to get close to her older sister and impress her. Moira tolerates and even observes her little sister with curiosity, but never lets her in, much to her parents' sad bewilderment. Not even Moira's early marriage to her high-school boyfriend sets her heart at ease, her husband's unconditional love failing to assure her she is part of something bigger than the little world she's locked herself into.

As it often happens, it takes a violent tragedy for this tormented young woman to revisit her tentative steps through life and analyse what has kept her from loving unhinderedly and letting others love her.

Sister and brother Chelo and Joseph Lee are spoils of war. They are altered, having inherited extensive genetic enhancements from their parents, who, themselves also received theirs from their parents. The two siblings, along with a few other altered children, are a constant reminder of a terrible conflict between unaltered colonists and a group of enhanced individuals who tried to settle on the same planet.

The colonists of the small, frontier town of Aristos are purists. They look upon the enhanced as abominations, an affront to God. To them, altered is an unclean word, an epithet. Having left the super technological society of Earth behind, they made their way to another world to try to start over. But soon they were forced to flee as the altered and their technologies caught up with them. On Fremont they hoped to finally be free from the influence of Earth but then another ship crewed by altered individuals landed near their fledgling settlement. The resulting clash between the two groups eventually led to the deaths of several dozen colonists and enhanced adults. The remaining altered returned to their ship and departed, never to return.

Chelo, her brother and their friends, all small children at the time, all lost their biological parents in the battle and were left behind when the others retreated. But the colonists decided to spare them and some families even reluctantly, grudgingly agreed to take them in. And so, for years, Chelo and the others have lived under the aegis of those who simultaneously hate and fear them while making use of their many unique physical and mental talents.

Joseph’s particular talent is that he is able to access the colonists’ data network and read the streams of information without the aid of any special equipment. He can perform this task naturally and far better than any of the other altered children. The residents of Aristos use this network to keep themselves abreast of climatic and geological activity in their area, as well as keep track of any dangerous native animals that might be nearby. When he is under, Joseph can feel the environment as if he is really there.

As the novel opens, a survey team which includes Chelo and Joseph’s adoptive parents sets out from Aristos to work in the highlands south of the town. With Joseph monitoring the network, everything is going as planned, until the network registers an earthquake. Deeply entrenched in the data streams, Joseph feels the pain and terror of the members of the survey team as they are buried and killed by a landslide triggered by the earthquake and goes into shock. From that point on he refuses to enter the network again, a development that does not please the town’s administrators, since it was heavily damaged in the quake and Joseph is the only one skilled enough to fix it completely.

Having barely tolerated these young people who they don’t even consider to be human all of these years, the community leaders see this as an opportunity to decide their fate once and for all. They decree that Chelo and the others must venture out into the wilderness on their own to locate and repair all of the damaged sections of the network.

Overwhelmed by feelings of betrayal and hopelessness, the young people know they have no choice but to comply. They put together a caravan and head out into Fremont’s untamed wilds. Little do they know that this excursion will turn out to be much more than they could have imagined. Before they return to Aristos, the young altered will find themselves on an odyssey of self discovery. There is one, Jenna, who is the only altered adult to have stayed behind after the conflict. Seriously scarred and missing an arm, she is still a formidable individual. Shunning the town and its human residents, she chooses instead to roam alone through Fremont’s wild places and sees this as the perfect opportunity to teach Chelo and her friends all about their heritage.

A second book featuring these same characters, entitled Reading the Wind, is due out soon and a third novel is in the works. More about the author can be found at her website.