Catalyst

Jackie Goudreault
Catalyst
Laurie Halse Anderson
Realistic Fiction
Just Right
Finished

1. The main character, Kate, is applying to a school named MIT. She didn't tell anyone that she only applied to that school. Her boyfriend, Mitch is a top student just like her. They used to compete on how well they are doing in school and what colleges they are going to. Mitch got into Harvard. Kate waits days before she finally gets her decision letter, but she is rejected. Her life turns upside down. Her friends say they don't know her anymore, and the track team almost kicks her off for not trying hard enough. While she is stressed out about all of this happening, she has more on her mind other then just college. Teri, the school's bully, is staying at Kate's house with Teri's son, Mikey because her house burnt down and Kate's dad is the Pastor of the town and that's the only place that they could stay. Teri takes advantage of Kate a lot, stealing her jewelry, making Kate driver her places, and just being mean. Kate's family becomes really close with Mikey. One day, when people were working on Teri's house, the power went off and everyone realized that Mikey was missing. They searched everywhere until they found him dead on the ground next to the electricity cords up in the attic. He was electrocuted. The rest of the book goes on with how much Teri struggles without Mikey. Everything falls apart for Teri, Kate, and Kate's dad.
2. I thought the beginning of the book before Kate got her decision letter was really boring because there was nothing interesting happening about her life and it was just going back and forth from her worrying and her everyday life. The ending was really interesting and it left me hanging every time I put the book down and you don't know the outcome of all of this until the last page.
3. I think the theme would be coping with loss because Kate doesn't get into MIT so she doesn't know what to do. There is no mother to run her house hold because of her death a few years ago, and Kate still misses her a lot. Lastly, everyone is trying to cope with Mikey's death.
4. My favorite character is Kate's best friend Sarah. She is a really good friend to Kate and helps her throughout the whole book. She is always positive and makes Kate learn from her mistakes and try again. She is nice to everyone and is very genuine.
5. My least favorite character is Teri because she has never been nice to anyone except Mikey in the whole book. She solves her problems by either beating someone up or getting mad and threatening someone. After Mikey's death, she became depressed and mean to anyone who talked to her, even her mother.
6. While reading, I didn't expect Mikey to die. I thought he was going to be a positive influence on Teri throughout the book to make her nicer and realize Kate is her friend. I also thought that when Kate called MIT pretending to be her dead mother to try to see if there was a mistake on her rejection, that they would agree with her and she would go there after all. If that didn't happen, she would have gone to another college at the last minute. I didn't expect that she would end up not going to a college and just live with Teri. Overall, the ending of the book is not what I predicted which made it fun, and interesting to read.