Summary of a book. Is it alright?

Question

As part of my summer project, I had to summarize the book I read. Is this an alright summary? It's also an oral presentation and it is not completely done yet.

The book I chose to read was Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Greally. It is a true story about a girl named Lucy Greally, who is diagnosed with a dangerous form of cancer at the age of nine. Although she was very sick, she treated it as an adventure, and was proud of all the special treatment and surgeries she was receiving. Because of an awkward family situation home at, she considered the hospital her home. When she was home, she blamed herself for her family’s problems, just because she had cancer, and the medical bill her parents had to pay was quite big. In order to stop her cancer, the doctors had to remove a part of her jaw, which made her face look different and disfigured. While she was still in the hospital, it never bothered her very much, but when she returned to school, she would be teased and taunted all day. She realized that no one would ever like or love her, because she was ugly. The only time when she could feel normal, was on Halloween because she could hide her face under a mask.

She thought that the only way for her to live normally again was to have plastic surgery, which was a new technology at the time. When she graduated from high school, and started classes at college, she was still having operations on her face. After years of plastic surgery, her face was not much better. She realized that the only way for her to get over it, was not become less ugly, but to ignore the fact that she looked ugly. She stopped caring what she looked like, and lived like a normal person. She cut her hair, so that her face was visible, and stopped worrying about what it looked like.

Answer 1

Well, you have summarized the plot OK, but the structure of this report needs work.  You should start with a paragraph dedicated to a description of the character, giving both physical description and personality traits that will come into play in the story.  

Next, write a paragraph describing the setting.  Really, don't be afraid to use paragraphs.  The more you try, the better you will be at it, like with everything.  Try to make your teacher be able to imagine the place, even see and smell it.

Now you should write a few paragraphs about the plot.  I won't tell you how to divide what you've written into paragraphs, but a good rule is whenever the action changes scene, it is a different day or much different time, or something new is occurring is a good time for a new paragraph.  

In your oral report, people will also want to really be able to imagine the scene, give a lot of good description using adjectives, adverbs, similes, and metaphors.

Give it a try, it's not too hard, and your teacher will like it.  I know, I'm a Middle School English teacher myself!