Time Travel, Veils and Proof

This book is getting so interesting, Miranda invited Annemarie to her house and in their way, the Laughing Man called Annemarie "angel". "You" sends a second note to Miranda, she finds it in a bag of roles at Jimmy's, "you" asks her to write a true story in the letter and it says she can't show the letter to anyone. Miranda and Colin find out that Jimmy is keeping $2 bills in hid Fred Flintstone bank. Miranda's mother says that everyone has a "veil" that keeps us from seeing the big things in life and just makes us see the small things and we have to lift a corner of it to see the real world. Miranda starts wondering if you are born with a "veil" and if there are people who always see the big things, like "you". Miranda is starting to feel weird but good around Colin since their heads touched one day, she thinks that maybe Annemarie is feeling that too. Julia starts questioning Annemarie about her job at Jimmy's, she said she doesn't need the money and that Annemarie shouldn't be eating those sandwiches or drinking sodas.  Julia goes to Jimmy's and tells everyone that their cheese isn't real cheese, Jimmy kicks her out of his shop. Sal's mom goes to Miranda's apartment with some potato chips and says that she misses Miranda. Richard's shoes are gone. After thanksgiving everyone is in the lunchroom because the a naked man is running around Brooklyn. While Miranda and Annemarie are talking, Annemarie just goes into space, Julia comes, tells Miranda to ignore what's happening and keeps talking until Annemarie is back in the conversation again, then she left. Julia calls Miranda an idiot, and she tells her that Annemarie was having a seizure because she has epilepsy, that's why she can't eat sandwiches or drink sodas. Miranda sees Sal and Marcus on her way home, Sal avoids Marcus, who ignored both of them. Annemarie tells Miranda that someone left her a rose, she refuses to think it was Colin. Miranda finds the third note in her coat and it had "proof": "3 p.m. today: Colin's knapsack. Christmas Day: Tesser well. April 27th: Studio TV-15. Marcus waves at Miranda instead of ignoring her and walks with her. They talk about time travel again and Julia gets in the conversation. The Laughing Man runs away from Marcus. One of Jimmy's rolls is missing and Miranda later finds the first proof, the missing roll at Colin's knapsack. Miranda and her mom discuss about how Miranda gave a sandwich to the Laughing Man. Richard wants to marry Miranda's mom. Jimmy thinks that Colin, Annemarie and Miranda stole his bank and he won't let them return to work so they write a letter explaining that they didn't stole it.

"Mom says each of us has a veil between ourselves and the rest of the world, like a bride wears on her wedding day, except this kind of veil is invisible" (Stead 71)

This quote explains what the veil is. I think that is pretty much like being blind from the heart. We don't realize so much that's going on in the world because our veil won't let us see it. We have to learn how to lift our veil to see everything clearly and not muffled. That way, when we look at the whole picture, we will understand things that we didn't get before. It is really important that you can find out how to do this yourself so you can be independent and so you can do good in life. Also you need to know when to lift it, when is it extremely necessary to lift it and what are the moments that would be better off with the veil on, so you can't see what's happening. All of this will help us be successful in life and it will help us find clarity and truth.

" 'Look. It's like every moment in time is a diamond sitting on this ring. Pretend the ring is really big, with diamonds all around, and each diamond is one moment. Got it?' " (Stead 102)

This is Julia explaining how time works. She says that each diamond chip in her ring is a moment and all of the moments are happening at the same time, so there is no past or present or future. If time travel does exist, and you will travel in time when you are older, you are technically already doing it, just that you don't know it yet because that hasn't happened to you yet. So, you can arrive before you left because if you leave 5 minutes after you say you'll leave and you return to the "present" 5 minutes after you said you'll leave, you would have already arrived even though the you that you feel, the one that was saying you'll leave, hasn't left yet. It is all complicated and hard to understand but if time doesn't really exist, then we should try to appreciate what we think is time. If time travel is possible, probably you are traveling through time right now, in the "future" so that's why you don't know it yet. This discussion has been showed all through the book, so I guess this is important in the story, Miranda doesn't get how time works, although Marcus and Julia have tried to explain it to her. i think that she isn't lifting her veil, or else, she would have understood already.

So many things happen at once! It is just so hard to stop reading this book. It keeps you thinking, what will happen next? what does this mean? why did she do this? So you have to keep reading in order to answer all of your questions. It is full of surprises, there are things that you would have never expected, like the fact that Annemarie has epilepsy! Since when? I think that Miranda won't understand time until the very end, because she is not getting any further in her understanding. I think that Colin has feelings for either Annemarie or Miranda, I just can't figure that out yet, maybe I already did but I don't know it. I hope that Julia and Annemarie solve their problems because I think that Julia needs attention and I think she is insecure and that's why she is "mean". Maybe if she has a friend she can count with, she would be nicer. I really, really hope that Jimmy sees that the kids didn't stole his bank and that he lets them go back to work, they really had fun in that shop. I think that after Miranda's mom thinks this through, she will accept Richard's proposal and marry him, that would make them both happy. I want to find out what happened with Richard's shoe, its weird that someone breaks into your house and just takes one shoe, not even a pair, just one. I am dying to know who "you" is. Now that there has been more talks about time travel, I'm starting to think that this "you" is a time traveler, I don't know, I just suppose. I am enjoying this book a lot because even though that the "main" topic is time travel and "you" and all that stuff, it also talks about friendship and the importance it has in life. I want to end this book so bad! There are so many mysteries I want to find the answer to. Guess I'll just have to keep reading...

Some People say $2 bills bring luck... Maybe this one will give me luck in answering all of my questions. I don't know... I'm just saying.

You

When you reach me is a book written by Rebecca Stead. It is about a girl named Miranda, who starts receiving mysterious letters from someone that she calls "you" who tells Miranda to write a letter to him/her. Miranda's mom has been practicing to enter the $2000 pyramid show with her boyfriend's and Miranda's help. Miranda complains about having to wait for Mom at Belle's so they decide to have a spare key in the fire hose. Miranda had a friend named Sal who also lived in her building but they are not longer friends. Miranda already started the letter to "you" the day Sal got punched, which was the day his friendship with Miranda ended (but Miranda didn't know that yet). Mom gets accepted at the show and they keep practicing. Everyday when miranda returns home from school, she has to walk past the "laughing man", a weird man who sleeps under Miranda's mailbox. Sal starts spending less time with Miranda so she makes a new friend called Annemarie, who was Julia's (a girl Miranda doesn't like, at all) best friend. Mom has already mastered the speed round in the show so they start to practice the winner's circle part, which is harder because there are no hand movements included. Miranda meets the boy who punched Sal, Marcus Heilbroner, and they have a conversation about time travel. Miranda and Annemarie meet Colin, who starts spending lunch with them and who got a  job for the three of them making sandwiches at Jimmy's during lunch, Jimmy is creepy according to Miranda but Annemarie thinks that he is still nice. Friday afternoon, Miranda gets home and finds her door unlocked, which never happens and she goes to Sal's apartment, he told her that maybe she just forgot to lock the door but Mom later says that she did lock it, they go check the fire hose and find out that the key is gone. Monday morning, Miranda finds the first note, where "you" asks for the location of the key, which is weird because he/she already took the keys before asking for the location. Jimmy won't let Miranda make sandwiches because he says her "V-cuts" aren't good enough so she counts bread and makes hot chocolate.

"M,This is hard. Harder than I expected, even with your help. But I have been practicing, and my preparations go well. I am coming to save your friend's life, and my own.I ask two favors.First, you must write me a letter.Second, please remember to mention the location of your house key. The trip is a difficult one. I will not be myself when I reach you" (Stead 60)

This quote is the first note Miranda received from "you". This quote got me thinking a lot. Miranda received this note after her key had disappeared, she said that the situation happened backwards. Then I remembered to when Miranda was talking to Marcus about time travel, in the book that Miranda was reading, two ladies told the kids that they will return (to their current time period) five minutes before they left and that they will return to the patio. Marcus said that they were lying because the kids would have seen themselves running to the patio because it had already happened, that got Miranda confused and she didn't understand what Marcus meant. I chose this quote because it makes me think that "you" may be stuck in time, because he asked for the location after he took the key. Also, "you" said he is "coming" to save Miranda's friend's life and his own, which starts the question, how do you save your own life if you a re already dead? That is what I'm questioning, and I think that this quote is really important in the book because it may lead to the answers to every mystery in this book.

"For a long time, Colin was just this short kid who seemed to end up in my class every year." (Stead 54)

This quote are Miranda's thoughts about Colin. She says that she barely knew him and that suddenly, he was always with her and Annemarie in school. They were strangers and then, in a blink, they were friends. I liked this quote because it shows how everything in life changes so quickly without us even realizing it. We have to cherish every moment we have, because one day, it will be a memory. This quote also shows that we have to prepare ourselves for changes in our lives because when life hits you hard out of nowhere, you'll know how to react in order to be alright. Miranda and Annemarie were impacted when Colin started to spend time with them, at first they were confused, but they got used to it while the time passed and they created a new friendship, and thanks to that they found a job and they have a strange friendship with Jimmy. This also shows us that we don't have to judge someone by what they seem to be, because once you know them, they  might end up being someone entirely different from what you had in mind. Like Colin, who seemed just the guy with a skateboard and ended up being friendly and someone you would like to spend time with. That also happened with Annemarie, Miranda just saw her as Julia's best friend until they got into a fight and Miranda got a chance to really know Annemarie and discovered that there was a lot about her that she didn't know before.

I'm really loving this book. It's one of the most interesting books I've ever read and it is just amazing. There is just one way to describe it, it is a page turner. It is almost impossible to stop reading, it keeps me wanting to read more and solve the unsolved mysteries. I think that Colin is going to start having a crush for either Annemarie or Miranda and that it will make situations awkward. I think that Jimmy might fire Miranda because she mentioned that her V-cuts are getting worst, while Annemarie's and Colin's are perfect. Mom will keep practicing, I know that, and I think that she will do really well in the contest and, probably, she will even win the $20,000 price. Also I think that Richard will propose to Mom and I think that she'll say yes. I really hope that Sal and Miranda solve their problems and be friends again because friends are very important in life and you shouldn't lose them because they will help you in life when you need them, specially when you are only child, you need friends to support you, because your true friends will love you always, no matter what. I can't wait to keep reading, I am really enjoying this book, and I think that I'm going to like it a lot.