Reader's Journal #14, Fleshmarket by Nicola Morgan

Dear Mrs. Zrihen,

                I just started reading Fleshmarket by Nicola Morgan.  It is a horror story that is set in 1822.  Here is a quote from the book I really liked on page 2:

                “She looked at the ceiling and grew colder.  A large spider hung briefly on it thread above her face.  Watched her watching it.  It scuttled back toward the safety of its web.  The sunlight threw flickering shadows, which danced drowsily across the dull ivory plaster.  The loud murmuring of the spectators lulled her and she could almost believe that this was not going to happen.

                No one had spoken her name since she entered the room.  Maybe she was not really there?  Where was her husband standing?  Where was her baby, her curly-haired, diamond eyed daughter?  She was glad her older child, Robbie, had not been allowed into the room.  But she must not scream, or he would hear from the outside and not understand that this was something that must be done, this cutting into his mother while she lay awake on the table.  In front of all these peering bushy-faced men.”

                I enjoyed this passage because it makes it sound very dramatic.  The significance to this passage to the book is that without this passage, you wouldn’t get an idea of how the room was.

                My two before reading strategies were to skim and scan for text features and read the synopsis.  My two during reading strategies were to understand any olden day words, since there were a lot of olden day words and understand what’s going on.  My two after reading strategies were to review what I had read and to prepare for Reader’s Journal.

                The genre of this book is horror.  The characteristics were shocking.  The characters in the book so far were just a surgeon and a woman who so far don’t have names.  Both of them are definitely static because they go from courageous to sad to proud.  The protagonist was the woman and the surgeon. There is no antagonist so far.  There is no foil so far.

                The setting of the story was not mentioned, but the place was the operating room in the infirmary.  The time was in 1822 when they had no anesthetics. 

                The exposition is when the woman needs an urgent surgery to remove a breast cancer tumor.  Five days after the surgery she dies.  The rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution I haven’t gotten to yet.  The conflict hasn’t been revealed yet.  The mood is eerie.  The theme hasn’t been revealed yet.  The moral so far is avoid breast cancer especially for the girls because you most probably will die. 

The point of view is third person.  The pattern of organization is cause and effect, because she got breast cancer and she died.  The author’s purpose is probably to scare the reader.  The author’s perspective is that he most probably doesn’t agree with this and is biased.

I would rate this book so far a nine out of ten because even though it’s pretty intense, it’s missing a certain quality.  I would recommend this book to eighth graders because younger kids would read this and freak out and have nightmares.

Sincerely, your student,

Michael Heskiel