Dab of Reality

When thinking about books to share, two came to mind immediately – Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson, and You Know Where to Find Me, by Rachel Cohn, but for very different reasons. These titles deal with death (or near death experiences) and the aftermath for the friends and family left behind. The reality of thinking about life and death is clear and intense in these books. However, they address the subject in such remarkably different ways. We don’t want to be scared of the inevitable, so the introduction to such a serious topic is important. On the other hand, writing can profoundly affect many, changing their behavior and perception of the world around them. With that in mind, one should tread lightly when entering these books, but enter them, nonetheless.

Wintergirls is an intense, provocative, and horrifying look into the world of an anorexic girl whose friend, who was at one point her best-friend, takes her own life through means unbelievable to many, especially me. What makes it even more incredible, the reality is that tens of thousands of young women struggle with bulimia and anorexia every day. The novel was carefully and meticulously written about the girl who survived. Yet, her emotion is unattainable, but her personal plight to keep her life (weight) under control is so real that one wonders whether it is dangerous to read the novel for many young, impressionable minds.

Similarly in You Know Where to Find Me, we see a young girl, whose future was on the cusp, yet she makes the choice to take her own life – she battled with depression for most of her adolescent life (her biological father battled with the same affliction). The protagonist is her cousin, who struggles with her own addiction to pain and distress, but who works through the day-to-day while mulling over her incredible loss. The reader sees a lonely, uncomfortable young woman trudge through her life, but you sense the promise in the words on the page. The background is real and distressing, but important to discover. Both of these novels are uncomfortable at times; the reality is harsh and cruel. However, and most importantly, these young women are worth taking the time to understand.

Hooray for Heroines!

The characters in these novels are full of the kind of energy that one would hope to find every day. Young women, who go out, seek the world, venture into the unknown and have proved to be genuine, intricate, and strong. As a woman, with two daughters, I would only hope that the kind of excitement and intricately fascinating details portrayed in these novels will be available to each and every one of us. As females, young and old, we balance on a fine line of feeling strength and weakness, confidence and insecurity, intrigue and disdain, and these characters give us the right to cheer for the aggressive, stubborn, type-a personalities, but to also connect to the anguish they feel when their heart is broken.

In Graceling, by Kristin Cashore, the heroine chose her life and love, while helping the country fight an evil mastermind. Also, a pillar of strength was the young girl who chose to escape her fate, avoid prison because she was female, protect one sister while saving another from death, and rode off into the sunset on a dragon in Shadow of the Dragon, by Kate O’Hearn. And lastly, A Curse Dark As Gold, by Elizabeth C. Buntz, develops a young woman who fights off a dark figure looming over her tragic and simple but heroic life, as she saves the family business, her sister, and her own young child. Hooray for the REAL heroines – people who wear dresses (when they choose) while saving princesses (themselves, as well), tame dragons (no person had been able to before), fall in love (and show it openly), and be themselves (all in a day's work)! All of these young women show charisma and self-control while defeating the odds stacked against them, but they never lost their smart wit and capacity to defend themselves - traits I think we all hope for!