A Response to "Running the Risk"

I have just finished reading a very intense and "edge of your seat" type book called "Running the Risk." This book has very different various elements that add to its beauty. This is the kind of book that is told in a very smooth and beautiful tone, but yet it is about such a dark topic. Sean, a normal teenage boy is put in a life or death situation. Some thugs show up at the place where he is working and hold up the entire place until they give them all the money in the restaurant. There are different parts in this book that can really put a ton of goosebumps on your arms!

The first scene in the book is the part where the criminals come in and point guns at the people working at Burger Heaven, the restaurant Sean works at. It is a very suspenseful start and pulls us in right away. The author made it seem like a lot to the other workers in the restaurant at the time of the robbery, but the author emphasized that Sean was not traumatized by this event. In the first couple chapters we think of this as a bad thing. Sean gets questioned because he stays calm like nothing was happening. Then as the book goes on, it seemed to has changed Sean as a person. The robbery and the whole thing that happened in Burger Heaven changed Sean's life in a good way.

After the incident with the criminals, Sean got to get closer with Jeanette. Jeanette was a very good looking girl who worked with Sean. She didn't get much attention from Sean because he was a very hard worker and was not into socializing when working. After everyone got a break from working at Burger Heaven, Sean helped Jeanette with her anxiety attacks she was having and experiencing after the criminals held them up. After everything that Sean did for Jeanette, they started to fall in love. This is an example of how the robbery at Burger Heaven made his life more interesting for Sean.

Secondly, the hold up at the burger joint helped Sean become a better person. For example, Jeanette started to have a panic attack when she was in class. During lunch, she came to Sean and asked if he could take a walk with him downtown. So, as they were walking he got hit in the head by a lady. The lady had lost her son ten years ago and mistook Sean as her dead son. He obviously realized that this woman was crazy, so he brought her back to the mental home, bought her food along the way, and made sure she had everything that the woman needed. I think that since Jeanette was linked to the robbery and she was the reason that they took the walk to downtown, the robbery had something to do with the women. The women kind of helped Sean know that there is something more than being ordinary, there is something to wake up to in the morning.

In conclusion, Sean realized that there is more than just sitting home by yourself. There is passion and love and adventure. The thing at Burger Heaven kind of burst Sean's "ordinary bubble" and let him go free and be different.