1. Daniel, Ainsley, maryam, Jacob
ACCELERATION
Author: Graham McNamee
Daniel, Ainsley, maryam, Jacob

2. PLOT
Conflict: After finding Roach’s Diary, Duncan faces a significant amount of self doubt. Duncan knows he is the only one who can save the 3 women’s lives, but doubts himself because of the guilt he’s feeling. The guilt from not being able to save Maya, the girl who was drowning in a beach incident a year ago. Duncan faces this internal conflict, which results to an external conflict as well because there is limited time to save the women.
Introduction: Duncan works at the Toronto Transit Commission’s lost & found from 9 am – 5 pm, Monday to Friday. Duncan was forced by his dad to work here, and he hates his job. The lost & found supervisor who works with Duncan is named Jacob. Another character in the book is Wayne, a long-time friend of Duncan who works at the dairy barn. Secondly, Vinny is also a friend of Duncan who has 3 fingers on one hand due to a birth defect.
Initiating incident: Duncan finds the killer’s journal in the lost and found under the TTC. He decides to save the people who Roach is panning to kill. Duncan thinks that it’s up to him to save the women from Roach the killer before it’s too late. He thinks that it’s another way for him to be forgiven from failing to save the drowning girl a year ago. Later, Duncan tells Vinny about the diary and they decide to find the Roach together. They find more information, evidence and plans to give it to the police.

3. Rising Action:
Duncan goes to the pool with Wayne. During his swim in the deep end of the pool, Duncan has a flashback of the past incident with the drowning girl. After facing shock, Duncan’s mentality changes. Duncan became determined to stop Roach.
Duncan starts to thoughtfully examine the diary, and to find a spot that Roach would give away himself. Eventually he read about Roach’s targets Cherry, Bones, and Clown. With detailed information, Duncan follows Roach’s directions which would lead him to Cherry’s route. There Duncan finds who Cherry is.
After Vinny accepting Duncan’s request for him to help Duncan, Vinny tracks down potential targets that were like Roach. Fortunately Duncan found a employee’s purchase receipt in Yorkdale mall, and tracks two potential targets that were like Roach. Unfortunately both weren’t Roach, because they both had a loving family.
One day at work, Duncan gets a visit from a tall man who was looking for a diary he had lost. Obviously, that was Roach. With no interest in giving back the diary, Duncan tells Roach no such thing had been turned in to the lost and found. When Roach went out to head home, Duncan tracked his steps and arrived at Roach’s house. There he waited for Roach to leave, and when Roach left, Duncan called Wayne to unlock Roach’s house lock.

4. Climax: Duncan goes in and examines the basement, and finally finds a dark room which appears to have no handle on the door that leads into it. At first it seemed to be a room for someone to be caged in, but Duncan found out that no one or nothing was there except for a plastic bottle.
After putting things back to place, Duncan tried to leave the basement when suddenly, he heard the door opening upstairs. He didn’t have any time to hide under the staircase, so he had to hide inside the dark room, but only to be an easy prey. When Roach was about to enter the dark room towards Duncan, Duncan pushed Roach with a metal bar that he had. Roach was examining who Duncan was, and at the same time trying to kill him with the knife he had. Despite Duncan’s ability to get upstairs and leave the house, Roach kept following him. Eventually Duncan had nowhere to escape when they were both at the subway station. After some pushing, Duncan fell on the tracks as the train was soon to come. With the last few strength he had, Duncan held onto Roach’s feet, and eventually Roach fell on the tracks as well. In this moment of time both were out of strength to jump over, and the train was right in front. It came closer, and the light of their lives had darkened.
Where we surprised? Yes we were surprised of the climax because it was an unpredicted climax. We thought that Duncan would collect important information and hand it to the police, so that the police would believe in their evidence. Secondly, we thought that Duncan would secretly disturb Roach’s plans, by telling the women the truth, or by disturbing their transportation. None of us thought that Duncan would be caught by Roach in his house, and to make it out alive.

5. Falling action: Duncan was in the hospital because of his injuries from the fight with Roach. Everyone came to visit Duncan, wishing him to get better. During Duncan’s stay in the hospital, the police came in and asked him all the details of the incident. Duncan said he doesn't remember anything, but it was a lie. Duncan was the one who took responsibility when he deeply examined the book, and Duncan was the one who kept his responsibility by solving it without bringing the law in.
Conclusion: After half a month spent in the hospital, Duncan gets back to home and work with a cast on. Duncan became a more all-round happy guy, and loved to engage in conversations with people. He had his first ever conversation with his work partner Jacob. After having a BBQ party with the fire made out of burnt diary pages, Duncan goes to the pool with Vinny. With a cast on, Duncan swims to the deep end of the pool. With his lungs hungry for breath, Duncan says a silent “Sorry”. When he went back up, Duncan told Vinny that Maya wasn’t there anymore. After Vinny telling Duncan to let her sleep, Duncan leaves the pool, and leaves his guilt and fear after saying “Night”.
We loved the ending because it wrapped up all of Duncan’s conflicts and problems during the first half of the book. There were no mysteries behind it, and there were no unsolved problems.

6. When Duncan was about to leave Roach’s basement, Roach came in
When Duncan was about to leave Roach’s basement, Roach came in. Duncan failed to hide efficiently, and that lead to a fight. Despite Duncan’s ability to get out of the house, there was no escape possible when they got to the subway station. After pushing and shoving, Duncan and Roach both get hit by the train.
One day Roach visits the lost and found to find his diary. After telling him there was no such thing, Duncan follows Roach’s steps to his house. After Roach left, Duncan get Wayne to unlock the door to Roach’s house.
After telling Vinny, Duncan gets the help of Vinny. Through their work they find potential targets who are like Roach, follows them, but unfortunately they weren’t Roach.
At first, Duncan doubts himself and hides from the conflict. After going to the pool with Wayne, Duncan determines to find Roach.
Duncan survived, and Roach died. Duncan lies to the police that he had forgot everything that happened.
After nightmares, Duncan gets forced from himself to go back to the diary. There he finds out that this killer named Roach is targeting 3 women.
One day going through items in the lost & found, Duncan finds a diary. The first few pages of it were experiments of liquids that kill mice, so Duncan kicked it away in disgust.
Duncan went back to the pool, to realize that Maya wasn’t there anymore. He became guilt-free, and burned the journal to have a BBQ party.
Duncan is a 17 year old teenager who works at the TTC lost and found. Duncan has two good buddies, Wayne and Vinny. Duncan is guilty of not being able to save a drowning girl named Maya, a year ago.

7. Freytag’s pyramid

8. Character
Duncan – The protagonist of this story. He is a high school student who will be in his 12th grade after summer break. Duncan has a mother, a father, and friends Vinny and Wayne. He works at the Toronto Transit Center lost and found, working from 9a.m. – 5p.m.
Duncan is a very thoughtful, careful, and overprotective young man who has been having nightmares from an incident a year ago. The incident was at an ocean, and it involved a drowning girl. Duncan was the only one near the drowning girl, but it was too late when he swam to her. For over a year, Duncan had never slept well because of the nightmares he had. He felt significant amount of guilt, which he had troubles overcoming.
During the first half of the book, Duncan had a lack of motivation. He faced mental challenges such as discouragement to himself, expecting nothing from himself, and understating himself. The incident took away all the self confidence he had, and the result was significant amount of doubt to himself.
In the second half of the book, Duncan faces a change of mentality. From “I can’t do it, I don’t deserve to do it because of my past failure”, he changed to “I can do it, this is why I have to do it”. He used his past failure to push him forward. The incident that held him back, became his motivation to save the lives of Roach’s targets.

9. Comparison between protagonist when described in character sketch to after.
Before Sketch
After Sketch
Doubtful to himself
Hides from diary
Lives with no desire
Discourages himself
Trapped in with guilt
Doesn’t listen to others
Lazy and fearful
Motivates himself
Uses guilt to push forward
Active and brave
Responsible and thoughtful
Organized
Likes to engage with others
Enjoys going against the odds
Doesn’t hid from challenges

10. Roach – The antagonist of the story
Roach – The antagonist of the story. Roach, (aka Scott Weber) is a man who is between his late 20s and early 30s. He is a tall, strong man but has terrible acne on his face. Roach lives with his grandma, who had caged him in a basement throughout his young life. Roach describes his mother with anger and disgust, because it is believed to be that his mom was a women who brought different men each day.
Roach is a security guard at the Yorkdale Mall. He is believed to be a psychopath, which can not be argued because Roach’s hobbies were experimenting different liquids to kill animals, or damage them to death. In addition, Roach had been the suspect of several different building fires.
This psychopath was the owner of the diary that Duncan had found in the lost and found. The diary that Duncan had found was full of information of animal deaths, building fires, and most shockingly, three women. Roach’s next target were 3 different women, and he had followed them so much that he knew exactly where they would go, at the exact time. The whole story started when Roach faced bad luck, and lost his diary. Things got worse for Roach when it got into Duncan’s hands.

11. Theme
One of the themes for the book is guilt. Duncan is feeling guilty about how he witnessed the girl drowning and he was unable to save her. The second theme is good vs evil. Duncan and his friends are searching for a man who calls himself Roach, and plans to kill innocent women.
Big message: Duncan learned to overcome his fear. Duncan killed Roach which led to Duncan not hearing the girl’s voice, and stopped having nightmares about her. That made him believe in himself again.
Connection: One of my connections is a good vs evil. One thing I could relate is me putting up a fight when I wake up my dog to take him on a walk. I would be the good guy and my dog would be evil guy. He would always refuse to wake up, which would be a challenge for me.
Another connection is about self belief. In life there are so many mistakes yet such little things that we exceed in. Unfortunately through the failures, we tend to sulk and lose self confidence. I personally faced that in so many different ways academically, socially, and athletically, but through the hard times I learned to use the mistakes to make myself stronger and better. Just a slight tilt of mentality can save lives, and Duncan showed that in the book.

12. Setting Time: August (Summer Break)
Place: Toronto, Ontario (Toronto Transit Commission Lost and Found, Roach’s house, and The Jungle)
Year: Published in 2003
Mood / Atmosphere:
Mysterious- When you are reading the book all you want to know is what is going to happen next.
There is a lot of suspense and tension built throughout the book.
Intensity and action.
The setting is very significant for the conflict because the jungle was for delinquents. Because Duncan had a doubtful mindset of a delinquent person, he faced the conflict of self discouragement.

13. Roach lived on Cedar Road, which is now called Glen Cedar Road.
Wilson Station, Toronto Wellesley Station, Toronto
Roach lived on Cedar Road, which is now called Glen Cedar Road.

14. The Jungle where Duncan, Vinny and Wayne live (The Jungle is an apartment complex)
There is this neighborhood in Toronto called Lawrence Heights and it is referred to as “The Jungle.”

15. Daniel, Jacob, Ainsley, Maryam
Conclusion
Our group definitely enjoyed this book. It made us foreshadow, connect, and never gave us chance to stop reading. Throughout the suspense of the book we wanted to know more and more, and the organization of the conclusion of the book made it perfect.
We would consider more books by Graham McNamee, because his books are very well organized and suspenseful.
Daniel, Jacob, Ainsley, Maryam