Tabitha’s Letter Essay #3

November 19, 2015

 

A couple days ago I finished reading a 321-page novel. This book is a definite page turner, which is by Sarah Darer Littman.  One thing that I thought was pretty cool and caught my eye as I was reading “About the Author,” was that she lives in Connecticut. That’s not something I personally find too often (at all actually…) The main character of this book is Lara. From the second you open the front cover of this book it is suspenseful, it starts off with Lara chatting on Facebook with Christian. A guy whom she has never met but is in total love with, you might think Lara may be stupid for falling for this Christian guy, but throughout the book the author shows how easy it is to get sucked up into someone’s ploy online. I am not the type of person who loves movies (and most books,) that start at the end, then go back to the beginning then work their way back up to the final ending. But I loved this book.

 

Lara was once an overweight and a very depressed girl. But that was middle school. Since Lara’s mom has gotten her a therapist and nutritionist, her body and feelings have gotten in check. She is even trying out for cheerleading. The thing is, even though Lara seems to have gotten her life back together, and better than ever. You cannot salvage everything. One thing she lost was her best friend, Bree. Who upon entering high school found cooler friends. And Lara was left in the dust wondering what the heck happened! Bree being her neighbor, made that a little weird, considering how close they used to be and how their dads had built them and their little siblings a tree house together… Lara figures it was just them growing apart and moves on.

 

And just when Lara thinks her life can’t get any better, it does. A guy who couldn’t be any cuter and looks like an Abercrombie model requests to friend her on Facebook. She sees they have a lot of mutual friends and figures, why not? As if that wasn’t enough he messages her. This goes on for a couple of weeks, and Lara couldn’t be any happier. On a roller coaster that only goes up,(John Green) right?! All of a sudden, Christian starts messaging her all these nasty things. He goes onto tell Lara, the world would be better off without her. And she comes upon the same conclusion. Her sister Sydney comes to the realization that, that her sister was not just being annoying that night, when she bangs on the bathroom door telling her to hurry up.

 

“With Mom being on the city council, she’s all about “setting examples” of how to be the Perfect Parent. And of course she knows the police chief personally, so Syd and I always have to be a Perfect example of everything. Nothing less than perfection will do when you’re the daughters of Councilwoman Kathy Kelly. Being fat and depressed definitely didn’t fit the profile.

I gaze at Christian DeWitt’s picture, the cursor hovering over the Confirm button. He’s seriously hot. I can’t believe he wants to friend me. It can’t hurt, I tell myself, clicking Confirm.

I’m about to get off the computer when I hear the plink of a Facebook chat.

I can’t believe it. It’s him. Hot-as-anything Christian DeWitt! Hey, congrats on making cheerleading! he writes.

 

Thanks I’m pretty pumped. 😉

 

So, how was the rest of your day?

 

Pretty good. How about you?

 

Better now.

 

What was the matter before?

 

Stuff. You know, it happens, right?

 

Don’t I know it!

 

At least your having a good day…

 

 

Yeah. Pretty awesome day.

 

And my day just improved because I’m talking to a cute girl like you.”

 

(Pages 126-128)

 

I think that little passage explains how even on the first day they chatted Lara was already beginning to like Christian, so when he says all that mean stuff not only is Lara ready to end everything but it leaves the reader puzzled as well, kind of…

I chose this book because of my friend Megan E. Zappulla, who was recommended this book by Ms. Quezada, when we both were at the Media Center. At the time, I took the book from her and read the back and it sounded really good, but I had just checked out 3 books anyways. One reason that I was really surprised about the book was because Megan totally gave me a false and fake ending so I was expecting something that was not coming. Something that I really liked that the author did, which a lot of authors do, was use perspectives. I have to say my favorite perspective was probably Lara’s little sister’s, Sydney, because you could really see how Lara was impacting her life. And not in a good way(;/) If you watched the movie Cyberbully, and liked it, I think you would definitely love this book, and would notice the similarity between the two. I would give this book a 6 out of 10, because I really did like it, loved the characters and all the twist in turns. If I hadn’t watched Cyberbully I probably would’ve liked it more, but I felt this book was unoriginal in some places. And considering that this book was copyrighted in 2015 and Cyberbully came out in 2011, I would say it’s easy to see where some of the author’s inspiration might have come from.

 

Buh-bye,

Tabitha Aime

PS If you noticed I did not even say the name of the book, it’s Backlash if you were wondering. You either read this whole thing our skipped to the end. Either way good job!

mood of this novel in song lyrics: “im only human and i crash when i break down”

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2 thoughts on “Tabitha’s Letter Essay #3

  1. Tabitha,

    this sounds like a very interesting and I love realistic fictions so I bet I would like this! I really like how you wrote this letter essaying and I like the passage you chose because it gives me a better understanding of the book a bit more.

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