WOW, this story definitely keeps you reading and wanting to know what is going to happen next! Jenna then with Mrs. Gladstone's reassurance and permission she encourages that Jenna needs to refocus her priorities and re-connect with her family. Throughout the chapters and continued journey's Jenna knew that having a career is great, however nothing will fill the void where family belongs, it is that void when continues to make Jenna feel lonely and incomplete and the need to express her feelings to her father without "running away" from her problem and family issues. She understands that her father needs her. She then meets her father to tell him how she truly feels, "I took your drinking on my shoulders, Dad! But I can't keep it there anymore. I've changed. I love you, but I can not be with you unless you change because seeing you so out of control, seeing you wasting your life is to hard for me. I can't pretend like you don't have a problem. You need help, Dad! You're an alcoholic. There is help everywhere for what you got. But you've got to want to get it." (pg. 199) After expressing her feelings Jenna felt, "lighter and older." She always felt like she would have a permanent broken part in her because of the problems with her dad. Now Jenna sees that, "...it isn't the problems along the way that make us or break us. It's how we learn to stand and face them that make the difference"(pg. 201).
This book was a great novel about a young adult who has ambition, faces the challenges of being "awkward", and coming from a dysfunctional family. It's the realization that one can not escape and run away from reality. Family is the most important relationship that should be cherish, without communication and understanding a relationship can not form and mend. In Jenna's case, I feel that she took me on a journey to realize that students come from various backgrounds, that the understand and support of providing additional resources and advice is essential to give a student hope. However, the greatest importance is to give students who read this novel the realization that when opportunities, challenges, and hardships arise to think carefully and re-evaluate decisions and actions, but most importantly that you yourself can make a world of difference in the lives of many. (Whether at work, school, or in your own family!)
1 comment:
This would be a great book to offer students who are either in the same situation of being awkward. I think it could help with a lot of younger students especially one's who are not comfortable at school because of personal challenges. I don't know if that is what it is really all about, but I'm interested.
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