I read Butterfly Boy by Rigoberto Gonzalez; a book about Gonzalez's life and his becoming the man he is today. The book has a few interesting qualities that I would like to discuss.

The first thing I found interesting was how Gonzalez tied in all of his feminine acts as a child to him wanting to be like his mother. He admired her so much and was in love with everything she did for him. He wanted to walk like her and have her same mannerisms. I feel like him trying to be like his mom was the beginning of his homosexuality. He never came out and said it, but one could infer that from his writing.

Secondly, I understand that this is an autobiography, however a lot of things in the book seemed almost unbelievable to me. Gonzalez would talk about locking eyes with someone he had never talked to before, then a few paragraphs later they would be having hot and steamy sex. On a roof. In the rain. While that seems really exciting, it seemed a little embellished to me. However, this didn't take away from the book. I actually thought it added a little bit of thrill to the story.

Finally, the thing that I recognized the most was his style of writing. Butterfly Boy is written in both Spanish and English. Usually when books have a different language integrated in, the foreign words are italicized. However, this wasn't the case for this book. At first it confused me, but then I realized that he might have done this to show that neither of the languages or cultures are foreign to him. If this was the message he was trying to achieve, I like the way he decided to convey it.

Overall, Butterfly Boy was a very good read. I enjoyed Gonzalez

I am reading Butterfly Boy by Rigoberto Gonzalez. The book seemed very interesting even before I started reading. This was because of things like the cover, the reviews and the epigram.

When choosing the book, I was really won over by the cover. It is dark with an obfuscated picture of a boy with butterfly wings on his back. His eyes are a surprisingly bright yellow. This contrast startled me at first, but then I actually started looking at the picture. Why does this boy have on a smock and wings? Why does he look so hurt?

The reviews are full of approbation. "Deeply felt," and "engrossing" (Manrique, Reviews), were just some of the words used to describe the work. Then I see it in Silvia Spitta's review as she raves about Gonzalez' "poignant autobiography": "[his] outing as a gay man." Yes! This is definitely going to be good.

I'm itching to get to the 1st page when I stumble upon the epigram. " 'Of curse I love my father' a typo in an email," it reads. I feel it showed that Gonzalez is going to have problems with his father in the book. This book is getting more and more toothsome by the minute (and I haven't even started reading it yet!)

The table of contents is a combination of 5 parts, with more modicum chapters with the names of places and dates. The dates are not in chronological order, and I'm not too fond of books like that; however, the book seems so good that I have to just read the first page to see if this is what I want to read for class.

It doesn't disappoint. Within the first 10 pages, I found out that Gonzalez is in an abusive relationship with an older gentleman. He decides to go visit family to get away from him. I can't really tell if his family knows about his sexual orientation or not, but I don't think they do. From the way he describes his family, they don't seem that accepting of different things, so I doubt if he has told them yet.

Overall, I am really glad I chose Butterfly Boy so far. The book is interesting and I feel like it is going to be very dramatic and deep. Just think about it, if it didn't have the cover it did, I might not be reading it right now. I know people say not to judge a book by its cover, but in this case, it wasn't a bad thing.

1. Teen pregnancy and shows like Teen Mom are so controversial. The stereotype is that most teen mothers are ghetto, Hispanic or white trash and incapable of raising a child. There are a lot of people think that shows like 16 and Pregnant and Teen Mom encourage this.

2. I don’t think that the shows glamorize it at all. Nobody on the show is just fine and encouraging others to have kids of their own.

3. My satirical argument is that that the show is watched by all young girls of the world and that the stereotypical teen moms on the show are encouraging them to be young moms as well.

4. People who feel the same way that I feel about the issue of teen pregnancy would appreciate this satire, but teen moms probably wouldn’t like my portrayal of them. People who already don’t like the shows or the idea of teen mothers might think this article is real!

5. I chose an article as my media because I like the idea that it looks like an actual article but its 100% fake.

6. I focused on your stereotypical teen mom, and pointed out their flaws. Then I showed how the viewers of the show felt about them. I exposed the weaknesses of the show and made it funny.

7. I used euphemisms (mother of the year), an oxymoron, and a pun (Kelly's paragraph - sentence) to make my satire more comical.

LOS ANGELES – Young girls anticipate many things: their birthday, Halloween, Christmas.

The premiere of MTV’s second season of Young Mothers Rule!

YMR! is a show that follows four teenage mothers around their hometowns as they  neglect their children, fight with their baby daddies, and encourage innocently promiscuous girls around the world to have little tykes of their own.

Last season, YMR! followed around Kelly, D’Breeyahnuh, Jessee, and Maria.

Jessee was considered the favorite (behind D’Breeyahnuh of course), last season. The 18 year old cared for her beautiful son Farley in between spending time with her new boyfriend, smoking weed, and hooking up with her baby’s daddy (and his co-workers). “Jessee showed us that it’s okay to be a normal teenage girl, and have a kid too. I mean who knew you could still get baked after having a kid?” says viewer Chassidy, “I mean that’s the only thing that was holding me back, and the fact that I don’t have any money – but Jess had that under control too! A dancer at the local club? Do you know how much money comes in from that? She’s mother of the year, hands down.”

Maria, 17, the first person in her family to not be known by her mug shot on the 6 o’clock news, was seen as the good girl of the group. Trying to make a living for herself as a house maid to support her son Jose, age 2, Maria was not the show favorite. “She was trying too hard,” says viewer Katelyn, “I mean, she’s 17, by herself and with a kid. She still has 4 more years until she actually has to grow up! She should have just left the snot nose with her grandma. I mean she probably knows a little more about parenting than Maria, don’t you think?”  

D’Breeyahnuh, 16, was the only one to have more than one kid (Q’L’aneesia, Ralph Lauren, and Leroyetta, all under age 3). Her segments were more about her flunking high school, getting multicolored weaves, and trying to find out whom each child’s daddy was, than her taking care of her children. “I just pray for her,” said her teary-eyed mother Ellie May, who is more of a guardian to her children than D’Breeyahnuh herself, “she’ll come around one day. I just hope it's soon.”

Kelly, 15, from Willacoochee, GA, and her boyfriend of 9 months seemed to be the most stable couple on the show, texting each other every night; her from her YMR!-paid-for iPhone 4 in her trailer home, and him from his smuggled Nokia in jail. “Oh, were getting married once he finishes his sentence,” says Kelly, “not his like, word, you know talk sentence, but like, his jail sentence. He’s in jail.” Kelly has a 1.2 GPA.

The show is expected to have 69.8 million viewers tune in tonight. “I’m leaving school early to get prepared for the YMR! party I’m throwing tonight,” says 14 year old Becky, “I’m inviting all the girls in the 9th grade. I ordered fake baby bumps and everything, only for the people that aren’t already preggo of course. So I only had to get like 7 or 8. Go YMR! Whoo!”

YMR! season 2 premieres tonight at 10:00pm eastern time.