Before reading- When I first pulled the books out of the UPS box they had been shipped in, Arianne Cohen and Colleen Kinder's Confessions of a High School word nerd caught my attention. The cover was appealing as was the topic presented. I have never heard of either of the authors, and I'm interested in exploring the various tribulations and achievements of high school word nerds. Colleen Kinder is native to Buffalo, NY and attended Holy Angels Catholic Academy. She then went on to graduate from Yale University and received her MFA at the University of Iowa. She writes mainly non-fiction books and essays about travel and living an adventurous life. Arianne Cohen is also a native of New York, being born in Rochester and then moving to…show more content… She describes it using buckets full of literary devices throughout the course of the story. On page 40 she states " But it coasted with the slow grace of a sea monster." The application of a simile to recount the velocity of her beloved beast is tasteful and a wonderful alternative to the mundane "The car was slow" etc. that is much to commonly employed by less colorful authors. The fact that the vehicle has a large amount of sentimental value instead of having mainly material value is an important aspect to the overall moral of the…show more content… While they all had a range of writing styles and backgrounds, they're all graduates of either Yale or Harvard. They all used a slew of tasteful figurative language to give new depth to their nostalgic tales. As previously mentioned this novel reminds me of multiple personal experiences. The idea of golden years of youth and the span of life where you're trying to figure everything out, plus numerous shows and movies. In terms of figurative language this novel as about every literary device one could think of. In 'Confessions of a running disaster' by Tom Miller, page after page of humorous recounts of his high school cross-country days contain descriptive language. On page 95 refers to a kid dangling from the hands of a running mate by stating, " He squealed like a pig and began thrashing." The use of a simile in this sentence gives a more vivid account of the incident. Lauren Keane, author of 'Confessions of a ghetto soccer star', also adopted a diverse amount of literary techniques in her telling of the days as high school soccer star from a troubled area. One example of this can be found on page 127 conveys, " 'GRASS!' she cried reverently, falling to her knees. Ngoc ran her hand along the three inch high emerald carpet" The writer illustrates the grass as being an emerald carpet. She therefore uses a type of figurative language known as a
