Troy’s Letter Essay #4: The Compound part 2

Troy Andreoli

Mr. Jockers

Ila/1

12/21/16

Letter Essay

I recently finished the book “The Compound”. The Compound is a 245 page realistic fiction book and is part of a 2 book series. Written by S.A. Bodeen, this book has won Bodeen best children’s author of the year and many other awards. I read this book because I needed a book to read in the realistic fiction unit, also the author Bodeen had recently visited our school and wanted to give it a shot. And when Bodeen came to our school she gave a brief summary and it sounded very interesting.

And this is my second letter essay on the Compound because I finished the story and want to explain the rest of the story. So if you haven’t read the other letter essay letter essay I wrote then click here.

So the rest of the Compound gets very interesting and is my favorite part of the book. And if you read the last letter essay you can remember that I ended the summary saying that Eli the main character’s father could’ve saved his Grandma and twin brother Eddy who he was very connected with. I also mention that Eli was starting to not trust everyone, especially his father. And as the book goes on Eli starts to get more and more curious and starts to snoop around a little bit. As Eli was snooping around he realized that his father wasn’t telling him the full truth and actually had wirless connection outside of the compound. This shocked Eli and he got even more curious. And Eli started to look around the compound and he noticed that he had never stepped into his dead brother Eddie’s room. So he finally did it and went in noticing that Eddy’s old computer was their on the desk that they put together when they were building the compound. So being the twin brother that Eli is he knows everything about Eddy including his brothers password. Which he used to get in, and as he got onto the computer he realized that the old computer had a wifi connection just like his dad had said. So soon later Eli went out side of his fathers office to sit outside the wall and try to get a better connection and once he got connection a message popped up from his Eddy’s old account. Once Eli saw he couldn’t believe that the account was real but it actually was. So it turned out that Eli’s twin and grandma were still alive and well and are living in the outside world. But it also turned out the nuclear bomb was all fake and Eli’s father trapped his family in the compound and convinced them that their family members were dead. As the book goes on Eli starts to get very cautious and anxious to get out of the compound. But he does not know how he will confront his dad, so from the stress he decides to go to his mom and tell her the awful news. So he does and as they are in shock Eli’s older sister comes in with curiosity of the situation wondering what is the big deal. And Eli and his mom decides to tell her the news. But as they are Eli’s dad comes in and heres that the rest of his family knows the news and starts to scream at them trying to convince them that it was all for a reason. But Eli couldn’t hold the anger any more and started to punch his dad in the face knocking him out. And asking him to tell him the code to get out. But his dad didn’t tell them the exact password he gave them a riddle to figure it out. So read the book and find out if Eli solves the riddle and saves his family.

I was surprised when the author revealed that Eddie and Ellie’s grandma were still alive. This was shocking news to me, and honestly throughout the book I was positive that Eli’s family members were dead. But I was not surprised that Eli’s dad was crazy. The whole book I knew that their was something wrong with him and he was not trustworthy. I noticed that the author made Eli’s parents like less and less of each other throughout the story. I think Bodeen this to show that they didn’t have a true marriage and Eli’s mother didn’t marry his father for love she did it for money and power. Also I thinking she wanted to show that Eli’s mom was getting more and more anxious of leaving the compound. Also the character development of Eli was very shocking, because in the beginning of the book he was a 15 year old boy who didn’t care about anyone and pushed everyone away. But as the book got towards the end he started to trust his family and noticed they should work together.

A passage that I thought was interesting was when Eli was telling the reader about the family’s norms. It says “In the old world, and for a time in the new, Dad was obsessed with exercise. He was obsessive about a lot of things, but exercise is near the top. He told me a powerful man should have powerful body as well. He’s the one who got me into lifting and running everyday. So I was very surprised when he just stopped. It wasn’t a gradual thing, when he just skipped a day then start up again. One day he just stopped and he never stepped foot in this gym again”(page 30). I was very interested with this passage because I noticed that his dad was a hypocrite when he said that powerful men need powerful bodies. But then he didn’t listen to what he said and just stopped. But at least his dad something inspirational to his son and told his son to go to the gym and have a powerful body.

Overall I like the compound and I thought it was a good book but a little strange and I would give it a 7.5 out of a 10.

From Troy Andreoli

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4 thoughts on “Troy’s Letter Essay #4: The Compound part 2

  1. Dear Troy,
    I really liked your letter essay! I can tell that you put a lot of time and effort into it. One thing I liked is how you talked about your other letter essay about it and how you summarized you favorite part of the book. One suggestion I have is to use the word and less. Its very tempting to use that word a lot but you could use other transition words like further more, in addition, etc. Over all you did a really good job.
    From,
    Adrianna

  2. Dear Troy,
    I loved reading you letter essay and thank you for sharing it! It really seems that you really liked this book to be able to do TWO letter essays on it. I read that book myself and found it as interesting as you did. One thing I liked that you did in it was that you summarized the novel in great detail and provided many useful details and encouragement to read it as well. Another thing I liked was when you mentioned the character development of Eli. You worded that very well when you identified what he was like before and after being with his family for that long. There is only one thing I can suggest to improve. That is to maybe show another takeaway you got from the novel and why you felt it was important. You did a great job!
    From,
    Trevor

  3. Troy, I liked your letter essay. I liked how you made the letter essay into two parts, so you can really describe what is going on in the summary. I would recommend explaining what you liked about the passage of writing and not what happened in the story.

    Mitchell

  4. Dear Troy,
    I liked how you explained the detail in the story and how you wrote a second essay to give the people who want to read it a better idea about what it is about
    Tommy

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