Red Reviewed

I thought that Red was an excellent book to end our course with. I think that starting out with Hine's Rise and Fall of the American Teen set the stage for the different impressions of the teen years that our various novels dealt with. Ending with essays as raw and honest as the ones presented in Red were an excellent way to come full circle. I can understand why the novel has gotten the acclaim it has. At a time in their lives when young women long to be understood, Red touched on many topics that are painfully relatable to them. Even though many of the topics related to eating disorders and addiction were a bit more extreme than an average teen's problems, most of us know at least one or two teens who are struggling with those and similar problems. When I was reading the essays, I was inspired by the bravery of the young women writing, knowing that they were not only exposing themselves to countless strangers who would read the book, but even more painfully, to those who were closest to them -- family and friends. I'm glad that non-fiction books like this one are the most widely read genre in America. I think there is so much to be learned from them. Although most of us can relate to an incident or two in Sherman Alexie's novel, an essay format is much more powerful to most reading it. Maybe it's not as entertaining, but more therapeutic! Like some of my classmates, I too felt that there was a sameness to some of the stories. I wished it hadn't been so similarly edited. I think it would be interesting to read some of the posts on the young author's of the book Facebook pages.