I found “The Paper Menagerie” to be a captivating read. When I first began to read the story it seemed very weird to me and I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it. By the end of the story, I ended up loving it. The story was filled with many great details making it easy to follow along. For example, “A little paper tiger stood on the table, the size of two fists placed together. The skin of the tiger was the pattern on the wrapping paper, white background with red candy canes and green Christmas trees.”The story at times almost felt real. It felt like Jack was only using his imagination when he talked about the paper animals moving. The bored between fantasy and reality in this story was very thin because it didn’t go crazy when talking about the “magic” of the paper animals. It was easy to relate with because it wasn’t using overwhelming amounts of fantasy. This story reminded me too not take the things I have in life for granted. Jack took his mother for granted, he pushed her away. By the time Jack learned about his mother’s past, and just how much she loved him It was too late. As I read the story I felt bad for Jack, I could almost feel his sadness. In fact, the overall tone of the story was quite sad especially when Jack read his mother’s letter. You could tell how hurt his mother was inside from everything shed gone through. “Why won’t you talk to me, son? The pain makes it hard to write.” I truly did enjoy this story and it was a fun and interesting read.
I did not enjoy “The Embassy of Cambodia”. It was a very long story, making it hard to follow along. I felt lost while reading the story and I found myself having to reread things over again to understand. I also didn’t have any personal sort of connection to the story to evoke any major type of emotion inside me. The tone of this story was sad, I felt bad for Fatou. She had to spend her life as a slave, which was very sad. The story itself did feel very real and there wasn’t anything to lead me to think it was made up. Overall I didn’t enjoy the story like I had with “The Paper Menagerie”.
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