I remember reading it in 7th grade too, and I also had a hard time getting past the tough-boy things. For some reason, I remember the names of the characters really bothering and distracting me (I couldn’t figure out why their names were sodapop and ponyboy).

It really is a good book though. Maybe it should be read later in high school instead of middle school because I think it goes over a lot of kids’ heads.

She was beautiful. I can tell she would have been lovely to know.

I started reading Harry Potter in 4th grade (1999). Since then, I had been rereading the series every 12-18 months. However, in the past 5 years or so, I’ve tried rereading them and I just can’t seem to get into them anymore. I don’t know what my problem is. Maybe I’ve read them too many times? It makes me sad, though.

The pegs are used as an estimate of how thick the tissue is on a certain area of the face. Then they build muscle/skin/fat over the top of the pegs to the correct thickness. They estimate thickness based on gender, age and race. For example, most white females in their 20s have a similar amount of tissue that covers their face (assuming they are of average weight).