Text title – Ketchup Clouds 

Author/Director – annabel pitcher 

Text type – novel 

Date read – 25/06/20

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The story is about a 15 year old girl with a secret confessing it to a man on death row in the story the girl meets a boy named Max Morgan in school and he was a bit of a jerk to her and when they were at a party together they drank a bit together and then Zoe and Max started kissing each other then after that they started dating each other and Zoe then fell for Max’s brother Aaron. Max did not know about this until the end of the book Zoe told Max why her sister went deaf and they were dating until Zoe broke up with Max at the spring fair and Max was unsure why she broke up with him and then Max saw his brother Aaron kissing Zoe. Then they argued and they started getting closer to the edge. His brother Aaron pushed Max away then Max fell into the river and drowned.

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The characters I found interesting in the book were Max, Zoe and Aaron. The story started off when Zoe’s parents continued to argue and an end of term party was coming up and Zoe knew her mother would not let her attend it so she asked her dad if she could go which he said yeah you can go. when she got there she saw a guy she did not know and she saw him again but lost him in the crowd while at the party she saw Max and they made out with each other Max then took a photo of Zoe’s bare chest and sent it around the school he realised his guilt and he apologised as he tells her that he only showed one person and then they sent it around the school and then they made out again and after this they started dating Zoe then met the same guy she saw at the party and he walked off with another girl. They went to the library and he told Zoe his name is Aaron and that the girl he walked off with was his childhood friend and there was nothing between them after this there was a spring fair festival and this is when Zoe breaks up with Max. when Zoe and Aaron saw Max was walking off into the woods they followed him and this is when Max sees Zoe and Aaron kissing and asks what is going on and then Max and Aaron start arguing and they start fighting each other and while getting closer to the edge. Max then tries to grab Zoe and Aaron just pushes him into the river Max then falls in and drowns as the river was flowing quite fast and he could not get out of it a few weeks later they had a funeral for him and then Zoe had go up and speak in front of people and say a few words about Max.

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The message I took from the text was to not cheat on your partner as things can happen such as death because in the book Zoe cheated on her boyfriend Max with his brother Aaron and things all went downhill when Aaron pushed Max into the river which then he drowned. Max was drunk and you do stupid things sometimes when your drunk and sometimes. There is other ways people might die while they are drunk such as assault, suicide, etc the list goes on but what im trying to say is don’t cheat because there is consequences to it. If Zoe did not cheat on Max with his brother Aaron Max would have still been alive at the end of the book what i think is sad is that his own brother pushed him into the river while Max was drunk and could not get out of the river. When the cops came and asked what happened Aaron and Zoe lied and said that Max had slipped into the river and drowned.

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The challenges the characters had to deal with was when Zoe was cheating on Max with Aaron and Max did not know about it until the spring fair when things didn’t go as planned Max ended up drowning in the river. A week or two later Zoe had to deal with another challenge as she had to speak in front of everyone at Max’s funeral when she had so much guilt which made it so much harder for her as Zoe and Aaron are the only ones who know exactly what happened. Zoe wrote letters to a convicted killer in texas and said that she was guilty as well as him as she was writing letters about what happened leading up to Max’s death which Aaron ended up pushing him in the river which Max then drowned in the river. eventually the cops showed up and asked what had happened Zoe and Aaron said that Max had slipped into the river and drowned, she is writing these letters as she wants to let it out of her chest as she can not tell anyone especially her family as they will know what actually happened and they might go to prison so Zoe and Aaron keep the secret between them. Zoe tells the convicted killer as he killed his wife and Zoe had told him what happened as she told him that she felt guilty as well and that is why she was sending him the letters.

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The title was appropriate because it is about a murder as the story starts Max then sees Zoe at the party and takes a photo and sends it to his friend and his friend sent it to everyone around the school and Max then apologises as he regretted it saying he only meant to send it to his friend and his friend sent it to everyone around the school. Eventually Max started dating Zoe which they enjoyed with each other’s company when she saw his brother she started cheating on Max with Aaron and when Max finds out he walks into the forest drunk and then Zoe and Aaron start following him and then the brothers start fighting each other. Things then got way out of hand as Max tried to grab Zoe as he was going to leave with her. Aaron took this the wrong way and pushed him into the river and then Max drowned in the river. As he could not swim as he was drunk throughout the book it has a few major events that take place before Max’s death as there was the end of term party, the bonfire event, the spring fair, etc  these events were major events that took part as they were part of the story leading up to Max’s death in the few final pages of the book. then they also had a funeral for Max which Zoe had to speak at his funeral which was very hard as her ex boyfriend is now gone and Zoe and Aaron are the only ones who truly know what actually happened. They just do not want to say what actually happened as they do not want to go to prison for what they had done.

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I would recommend this story to kids and young adults as it is sort of like a mystery as the story builds on you eventually find out who killed Max and if people are interested in reading these types of books you would definitely enjoy the book. As you do not know what is coming next in the book unless you have read the book but i would recommend this book to kids and young adults as they might go through the same situations in the future. So to make them not go through the same mistakes and end up killing their ex i would recommend this book to them so this does not happen because you would feel so much regret if you end up killing someone you truly loved and once they are gone they are not going to come back which is very hard situation to deal with. As she had to speak in front of everyone at Max’s funeral which made that so much more worse as she was already guilty enough so when she went to speak in front of everyone she felt even more guiltier and felt like she did not deserve to speak in front of everyone at the funeral. As Zoe and Aaron were the ones who killed Max. But their parents did not know that they had killed someone they cared about.