Stephen Raleigh Byler's Searching for Intruders

I did not particularly care about Stephen Raleigh Byler's Searching for Intruders. It might just be because it is in the first-person point-of-view and it is kind of like a memoir, even though it is only fiction, and probably because there is no action or anything in it. It is just about this guy's life.

I can relate to the story "Roaches." My family lived in Peotone, IL, and then in Gary, IN before moving to Nappanee. In Peotone, we lived in an apartment. In Gary, a mobile home (trailer). Unfortunately, we had roaches. For the first couple or few years after we moved to Nappanee, we had roaches because they moved with us! Since then, we have not have roaches. But, every year, the ants, flies, and ladybugs (and once in a while during winter, mice) are just terrible! So, I can relate. And trust me, we always killed the roaches (and still all of the other bugs) because we are not pacifists.

The very short story that I hated was "Limp." My family has rescued three rescue dogs. Sammy, our first rescue, was always beat and his hair was long and matted. Xena, our second, was kept in a small cage whenever the owners left. Peyton, currently our third, was kept in a cage his entire life. He was only let out to go to the bathroom outside. He ate and slept in the cage. He wasn't allowed to get up on the furniture. His hair was long and matted. In mid-December 2008, we had to put Sammy down. Only a couple of years before, in one of my English classes in high school, we had to read the book, Of Mice and Men. We even had to watch the movie. In it, one of the men takes this guy's dog outside and shoots it. When I read it and watched the scene of the owner lying on his bed (you could only hear the gun go off), I had tears in my eyes because I knew we would be putting Sammy down soon because he was blind, going deaf, and he had a lump on his foot and on his back. In one of my classes during Spring Semester in college (only a few months after Sammy was put down), we had to write short stories. There was this one story where this mailman poisoned dogs and they died. I did not like it at all because we had only just put Sammy down. And it was still hard. In mid-May 2010, we had to put Xena down (only a few hours after I got out of class for the day and half-an-hour after my sister got out of school for the day). So, because of the rescues we do and us having to put our dogs down, I ended up skipping over "Limp" when I saw what happened in it. This is because I am very attached to dogs.

Another story I could (kind of) relate to was "Shooting Heads." Okay, well, maybe not the relationship thing, but totally the guns and rifles thing. My dad has two bows and arrows, three or four guns, a few rifles, several knives, a machete, and three or four swords. I have a sword, two thumb-punches, and two or three knives. Some of these are for my protection since I have a night class. Now is a "funny" story in which I make a cousin of mine jealous: In 2005 or 2006, during Nappanee's Annual Apple Festival, my aunt, her two sons, and her husband came out. My dad took her husband, my two male cousins, and my sister behind the house where we have the woods. They were all shooting the rifle at a ribbon that was hanging from a tree several yards from where they were standing. I guess they were all missing the target, except my dad. At one point, I go outside and am offered the rifle. Now, mind you, I haven't fired the rifle at all. I take it, aim, and fire. Dad told me that I hit the target. I take the rifle from my shoulder, hand it to him, and go back inside. He tells me that Tommy, my cousin who is only a couple of years younger than me, got jealous because I, a female, had hit the target and he, a male, hadn't. Dad told me later that Tommy took the rifle from my dad and fired the rifle, and still missed. I find it pretty funny. I also fired my dad's silver gun at a box several years ago when I was probably in middle school. Of course, this was in our front room during the winter. In the part where Fretz talks about an AK-47, I knew what he was talking about. In one of the books that I have, one of the guys uses an AK-47 with a silencer. In the movie, Heartbreak Ridge, with Clint Eastwood, he uses an AK-47 to scare the Marine recruits that he's supposed to be training. So, even though my dad does not have an AK-47, I know what one is. So, I can shoot the rifles and guns that my dad has. I even know how to load the bullets or pellets in them.

Everything else in the book, I can't relate to.