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Breaking Night

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Breaking Night
Obstacles to Overcome and Mistakes to Forgive It is fascinating when two people from completely different backgrounds have common characteristics. A world of poverty is depicted in Liz Murray’s book Breaking Night (2010). The memoir tells the struggles of a young girl’s journey from living on the city streets to attending one of the top schools in the country. Although our lives are quite different, Liz Murray and I show similar traits through struggle and success. Murray must over come many struggles in her life. Thanks to her persistence, she makes it to her final goal and is able to get over these struggles along the way. For example, Murray decides that she wants to finish high school and have a great education; however, she has not attended class for several years and has only earned one high school credit. This is her obstacle. She makes the decision to work hard on her studies and finds ways to motivate herself. Even though school was difficult and skipping was tempting, the author pushed forward to her goal. Her persistence pays off when she finishes high school in just two years. In addition, she is accepted into her dream college: Harvard. In my life I have overcome obstacles and shown persistence as well. There was a time when my determination stuck out the most. It was the high school county cross country meet. As a freshman I ran junior varsity, and was excited to know I would be leading the race. Once the gun went off I was not surprised to see only the trail and the bike before me. The race was going well but in the second mile it took a turn for the worst. A coach from a rival team pointed me in the wrong direction, and I led the top runners with me. Once I realized what had happened and that I was no longer in first place, I felt defeated. Others around me collapsed and dropped out of the race. My persistence kept me going. Emotionally and physically drained from the extra mile, I finished in 50th place. But I did not give up and I made


Cited: Murray, Liz. Breaking Night. New York. Hyperion. 2010. Print.
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