Both Sides Now - Ruth Pennebaker
The main character - Lisa - is the biggest contradiction to the stereotypical teenager. She is a straight laced girl who is on her school's newpaper, earns top marks in all of her classes, and has a strong sense of self decipline. "If you don't plan, you'll get taken by surprise, and I don't want that to happen to me. I want to plan for everything so that I can have a good, successful life," is one of the pharses her life revolves around.
However, there is one thing Lisa didn't plan for - her mother getting breast cancer. Lisa's life starts to go out of control. She forgets to meet a deadline for her school paper, and she flunks her driver's license.
Suddenly, she starts to see life through her mother's eyes; having to take life as it comes, not being able to directly control your future.
Her life takes a dramatic turn, and instead of trying to be "strong" for her mother, she realises that all along it was her mother that was being strong for her.
Most of the story is written in Lisa's point of view, but every now and then the author adds a paragraph or two from Rebecca's (Lisa's mom) point of view. You get to see the different perspectives on the same situation, and it makes you reflect on your own life.
The book is very solid and touching, and the part that really hits home is that the author (Ruth Pennebaker) is a cancer survivor herself.
This book deserves a silver medal (3.75/5 stars)
- Sonika
2 comments:
Sonika,
Great post!
This was a good review. i liked how you brought something else to the review besides the basic story.
if you need volunteer hours, don't forget to record the number at the bottom.
your next review would be 3 + 3 9 for your first review = 6
Catherine
The need to care for a parent for one reason or another is quite a common theme in teen literature - I think it must be part of a developmental stage to have this fear on some level - like how many children's stories involve orphans and that kind of thing. Thanks for the review.
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