The Natural

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       The book I read was called The Natural and is by Bernard Malamud.  The copyright date on this book is 1952. This type of book is a sports (baseball) and romance book.  The subject matter of this book is that a guy is in the big leagues and trying to become the greatest ball player in history while dealing with problems between one girl at first but then he falls in love with another girl.  Some other stuff you should know about the book is that in the beginning it is kind of confusing just remember they are two different girls, the one in the beginning and Memo.  In the beginning of the book Roy Hobbs is with is bud Sam and they are on there way to the knights stadium in Chicago, where Roy hopes two become a great baseball player.  After a little bit of playing he goes into a slump for a few games then he sees this girl standing up and he automatically comes out of this slump and he cant decide between Memo and Iris, the girl in the stands.  They make to the world series at the end and lose and he falls in love with Iris and kind of dumps Memo.  The theme of this book is you don't always get what you want no matter how hard you try.
         The whole story is told in 3rd person.  Roy Hobbs is traveling on a train with his friend Sam and Roy is trying play for the knights in Chicago.  When he gets to the hotel in Chicago he meets this pretty girl who he immediately falls in love with or at least that's what he thinks.  After a while he goes into a slump for at least 12 games then when this beautiful dark hair girl stands up in the stands he comes to like  her to and when he sees her when he's at the plate he immediately comes out of his slump.  Now he can't decide between Memo or Iris but he wants to like Memo.  They make it to the world series and lose and he finally decides that he is in love with Iris and that Memo was just another pretty face that he really wanted to be with because she was beautiful.  The intended audience is for teens about 14 to grownups who like baseball and romance books.  I think this book is more of a sports book because there's a lot of baseball the whole book and stuff about baseball.  The author kept me interested by making the book really suspenseful.  The authors style is sports and romance and it is really effective for the intended audience I think. 
         This book affected me because I felt really happy in some parts and sad in others and now I pay more attention to baseball.  No I did not change any ideas that I held with it.  This book brought up a lot of other sport writer authors that I have read in the past and now I want to read more of those types of books.
          I didn't really like the beginning of the book I feel like it could've been just fine with out the beginning of the book with like the train, carnival, and the other characters in the very beginning.  I strongly recommend this book to teens who are really into sports and romance especially if they really like baseball. 

Andrew Butler
11/6/13
Rating:**** 4/5