Response+to+Literature

Response to Literature The novel I read was called, Money Hungry, by Sharon G. Flake. The main setting of the story is in the projects where you can always find someone trying to make a dime. The main character is a young girl named Raspberry who lives in the projects and doesn’t like. She is always eager to get money. The conflict of the story is that Raspberry faced a lot of problems in the past, such as her mother not having any money so they had to live on the streets. Raspberry didn’t want to go back to that life so her main focus was getting money, which brought even more conflict. I think the central theme is “you need money to survive, but money isn’t everything.”

As stated before, the theme is, “you need money to survive, but money isn’t everything.” This theme is demonstrated because throughout the story Raspberry let money mess up a lot of things like friendship. Money isn’t everything and is not worth loosing your true friends over because true friends are hard to find. For example, Raspberry loaned her friend two hundred dollars, but Raspberry thought she spent the money on some boy. So Raspberry got mad and said some mean things and ruined their friendship. It turned out that her friend spent the money on her mother, who gave her up, plane ticket. These examples demonstrate the theme because Raspberry let money get in the way of an important friendship. This theme can be applied in real life situations because many people focus on money and think it is the most important and powerful thing, but it doesn’t make you as happy as friends, family and love.

The protagonist and narrator of the story is Raspberry Hill, a young girl who doesn’t know how special she is and only cares about money as a result of living on the streets. A quote from the novel that best shows the personality of the main character is in the beginning of the story Raspberry said, “some people think I would do anything for money. They’re wrong. I wouldn’t do nothing bad. Nothing that would hurt people, like selling dope, or shoplifting.” Having very little money was the main struggle throughout the novel that the narrator faced. Raspberry made a few bad decisions that she could have avoided. She changed because she learned that money isn’t everything and focused more on her friends and family.

I would recommend this novel to high school students because I think other people can relate to the book like I did. An example of why this would be a good book is because of the setting, which takes place in the projects, the conflict and the theme all together. Most students who live in the projects usually have similar problems. I think the description of the story was very effective. Dialogue should be changed to improve the story because if the dialogue was more detailed and intense, I think the reader would have felt the relationship with the characters more. My overall opinion of the story is that it was down-to-earth and uplifting.