Blog...5 Quarter 2

SPOILERS

Earlier today, I got distracted skimming a book that was buried in the piles of books in my closet. The book is Peaches by Jodi Lynn Anderson. The book is mostly a teenage girl book that I read with a friend of mine a few years ago. My mom would probably refer to it as trash but I still enjoyed reading it, stupid as it may be. The basic story is about three girls who come from completely different worlds who meet on a peach orchard and become unlikely friends. Murphy is the first girl introduced and was consequently my favorite. Her mom didn't really care about her along with some other hardships. The quote in the book that I took notice of is a thought of Murphy's. The passage goes, "He was the same as anybody else. Murphy breathed a sigh of relief. It felt good to be let down" (183). When I read this, I thought back to My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult and how that line sort of summarized most of the characters.

I'll start with Jesse, because he's always been a favorite of mine. He's been let down so much in his life that he starts to get uncomfortable when things are going his way. That's why he tries to rebel, to minimize the amount of time spent exceeding his expectations. He tries to get on his families nerves and flirt with Julia because he expects that they will be angry with him, or ignore him. And when he's isolated, he's in his most comfortable element.

With Anna, she keeps expecting her mother to care more about her and not ask for the donations. Every time she has to donate something new to her sister, she feels let down. This doesn't hurt her though because if she wasn't let down, she would be in unmarked territory and wouldn't know how to proceed. Would she actually not donate to her sister? It's easier for her when her mother lets her down.

Kate gets disappointed by her sickness. Whenever it comes back, she might feel a little more mentally stable, because she knows what's going on and knows what her body is doing. When the Leukemia disappeared for a while, she was nervous because of the unknown. Although getting sick again was a let down, in some ways, it might be the better option. For everybody, there's an aspect in their lives that is stable and doesn't knock us off our feet or raise our hopes. In a way, everyone needs something like that to ground us. Change is good, but if everything changes, the result wouldn't resemble the components.

Anderson, Jodi L. Peaches. New York: Alloy Entertainment, 2005.

Picoult, Jodi. My Sister's Keeper. New York: Washington Square Press, 2004.