I started the book The Greatest Things That Almost Happen by Don Robertson a little while ago. I then learned it was the third book in the series I was readying so I stopped and read the second. I started up again now. The series follows a young boy named Morris Bird III. In this book, the last of the trilogy he is in highschool and getting ready to go to college. Over the course of the series Morris has dealt with a lot of death. The main part of each book so far has had to do with a death. In the first book he deals with his best friends death. In the second it has to do with his grandmas death. Even though I have only just started this book the issue of death has already come up. His mother died.
        Don Robertson makes each book centered around death to bring out the characters truest self in a realistic way. When authors want you to see a characters real emotions and the way they are, a lot of times they cheat and use a way that would not work. When someone dies your raw emotions come out. It is a time when you are very fragile and exposed. This is a point where you can explore a characters subconscious emotions. This is what Don does with Morris Bird III. When he sees his friend Stanley killed in an explosion he becomes less aware and all of his subconscious emotions came through. This is the realest part of a person. Ever times a new death occurs you learn something new about Morris. When Stanley dies you see Morris stop being a kid. When he is traveling to see his friend he is still very innocent, but when Stanley dies you see a change. He stops looking to be helped and starts taking things into his own hands. There are many other people that were hurt from the explosion. He is just in elementary school but he steps up and helps people that are hurt. Then when his grandma dies you see that how ever mature he is still young and he wants his family together. But he doesn't get his family together so when his mom dies you see him push his family away and start to reside in his girlfriend Julie.
        Don choses who and when he kills people to illustrate all the sides of Morris. Each death has its own significance to the arc of the story and to Morris

The Sum and Total of Now

This was the second book of a trilogy, and it was very similar in structure to the first. The books are very slow paced yet very complex and confusing. This makes for a very difficult and interesting read. The climax is always at the very end of his books and the beginning is never important. In this one his grandmother is dying but the real action doesn't come until the end. The effect it has is there is sooooo much build to the climax. In some aspects a like it a lot but in a way it feels like the story is cut off too soon after the resolution. In the story the main character Morris is really close with his grandma and it's hard to deal with the fact that she is dying. His family spends all their time arguing over who will get what after she dies and this really hurts Morris because he feels like his family doesn't care about him or his grandma.

Morris and his grandma both go through a lot of struggles in this story. Morriss' biggest struggle is just the fact that his grandma is dying. She has helped him through a lot and he feels like once she is gone he will be alone in the world because he has become more and more distant with his family. When he goes to see him grandma to say goodbye all his family does is fight and Morris gets very upset because he is sad and he feels like no one in his family cares about him or his grandma. His grandma has a big barn full of old stuff and a nice old house and his family can't decide how to split it and that's all they care about. This is why Morris gets so upset. He sees the barn as the problem and he can't comprehend how his family is only concerned with what they can get. He idolizes he grandmother and feels like she is the only person that can understand him and when she is gone he feels alone. 

His grandma is dealing with similar problems. She feels that again no one cares about her. She sees what her death is doing to her family and she doesn't like it. She is in constant pain and she suffers a lot. Nobody sees this but Morris. She eventually asks him to kill her. I think this had a very Lange effect on Morris. He now feels like he should do what his grandma wants but he can't. When he does kill her he doesn't understand the fact that this is going to make his family stop fighting and that that was what is your grandmother ultimately wanted for him. Morris burns down the barn that had all of his grandmothers possessions to effectively stop his family from fighting and to achieve what his grandmother wanted for him. This changed Morris because he saw the world as more of an adult he realizes that it's not always easy to do the things that are the best for the people you love.
Morris faces a lot of problems but in the end I feel like he pulls through in a way that is much more mature.understands that even know what she did was an easy it was best for him his grandmother and his family and that even though all they did was bicker and fight over his grandmothers death he still cares a lot about them and he always has to do what's best for the group.