Cari-Ordinary+People

Ordinary People Judith Guest was born in Detroit, Michigan. She graduated at Royal Oak Dondero High School 1954. In 1958 she graduated from the University of Michigan with a BA in Education for English and Psychology. She taught for many years, until finally she sent in a short story she wrote to a contest and won. She then decided to put aside teaching and focus on writing a novel. In 1976 her first bestselling novel __Ordinary People__ was published. Others she wrote are __Second Heaven__ and __The Tarnished Eye__. Judith now lives in Minnesota and loves to spend time with her family. __Works Cited for Biography__ Guest, Judith. "Biography." __Judith Guest__. 2005. 12 March 2009. []
 * Judith Guest (1936-still alive)**

The Jarrets are the typical American family. Except the family is divided by a pain that keeps them struggling to heal. Calvin is a thriving provider and Beth his wife is a classified lady with standards. They had two sons, Conrad and Buck. Now they have one and that is the pain they have to unreal together.
 * Plot Sypnosis**

Calvin Jarrett worries a lot about his son Conrad. After his brother Buck died, Conrad could not handle Buck being gone. Finally he felt there was no other choice, but try to commit suicide. His parents find help for him and here is were the book begins. Conrad has been out of the hospital for a couple months. He rejoined swimming, started catching up on his grades, and hanging out with friends. Even though he was doing all this he was still unhappy. One of the reasons he was unhappy was him and his mother did not get along. He felt she did not care or love him, but it wasn't only Conrad who felt that way. Calvin also felt that Beth did not show enough affection to Conrad. Beth felt that Calvin babyed him to much and did not side with her for anything. His mother, swimming, friends, and school was all to much for him so quiting swimming Conrad felt was one way to get rid of pressure. Also going to Dr. Berger his psychatrist helped. He started going to Dr. Berger twice a week trying to figure out who he was now. Now that he is out of the hospital. Dr. Berger helps, along with his new girlfriend Jen. Jen helps him realize that he is a different person then he use to be. Conrad goes on with his life and is able to manage things to a point and is able to go down to once a week with Berger. Then as things start to go on something in Conrads life happens and turns his life around. To find out what that somethings is you need to read the book.
 * Summary**

__Works Cited for the Summary__ Guest, Judith. __Ordinary People__. Canada: Macmillan Company of Canada, 1976.

Some books are written in as a narrator or in 1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person, but with this book it was much different. In __Ordinary People__ Judith Guest writes the book in 2 perspectives. One chapter Calvin is talking and then the next it is Conrad. I felt that it was to hard to read like that. I never knew who was talking until I was half way through the chapter and the person who I thought was speaking wasn't actually the one who was. Then I would have to go back and re-read the chapter to fully understand that persons perspective. It was very fustrating at times. Another thing that I did not like was you didn't actually find out until half way through the book that Conrad actually tried to commit suicide. Guest impplies that he did, but it wasn't truly confirmed that he did until the middle of the book. A good thing that I liked were there wasn't to many characters. Sometimes in books there are way to many characters to keep track of. In __Ordinary People__ you had the main characters with a few other supporting characters, which helped me read the book better. All in all it was a decent book.
 * Criticism**

There was a movie made on the book in 1980. It seems to go by the book pretty well for the most part that I have seen, but I still believe that the books are always better than the movies.
 * Movie**

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