Hey, flipping quickly through chapter seven made me smile.
It's short. It's a flashback. There's no insipid floral language aimed at
Billy. Chapter seven is good.
Until you read the words.
Can we rewind to that first chapter? The one where her
mother is enthusiastic about her work and positive when talking to Sophie and
seems like a well balanced person? And then go back to chapter four where her
mother has fallen asleep crying, but when she wakes up she seems okay? She
jokes with Sophie, and they seem close, despite Sophie being, well, Sophie. And
then chapter five, Sophie's mother is happy and supportive of her daughter
going on a date. So obviously, she's still sad about something, but doing her
best to hide it from her daughter.
The end of chapter six feels out of place in comparison,
Sophie's mother almost sounds like she has learning difficulties, she's so
desperate for Sophie to stay around. I hated that bit, it was so, so, so, so
awful.
Chapter seven is a flashback essentially about Sophie's mum.
It starts with Sophie being at school, at an assembly
talking about the future. It's nine years previous to this story so I think
she's seventeen? But I don't know if she's a young or old seventeen, so this
could be upper or lower sixth. The speech is really condescending and
completely unrealistic, all about hopes and dreams. So was it just my school
going 'if you don't go to university, you'll end up flipping burgers and
wasting your life' (I like to think I showed them. Working at McDonald's with a
degree and a student loan the size of a year's wages, yo!) and basically
threatening us with aiming for a career from the age of fourteen? Good to know.
I have seriously only read about four lines in two pages.
It's just that easy to skim past the filler in this book. That's frightening,
it's a standard length novel.
We get a bad transition from the assembly about aiming for
the moon and go to Sophie's mother shaking her awake, to tell her she can't
sleep, like some five year old having a bad dream (experience talking here) and
it turns out she's downed some pills with whiskey.Who the fuck needs to stick to characterisation, hey?
Sophie says she didn't know whether her mother meant to kill
herself, it was a mystery she wasn't going to look into.
Seriously, it says that.
Whether she'd actally
meant to end her life is still a mystery, but one that I can't ponder too hard.
I don't want to know the answer.
Sophie, your bitch is showing.
Seriously, your mother is depressed to the point she mixes
drink and prescription drugs, is somehow coherent enough to WAKE YOU UP AND
TELL YOU WHAT SHE'S DONE and then you don't care to question it? I'd be like 'Mum,
how are you still standing? Why'd you do that? You know it's not the answer,
you didn't raise me to accept failure, so why are you letting it defeat you?
Remember when I was depressed, did you let me give up? No, we talked, so talk,
dammit! I'm not leaving you until you do, not even for you to go for a wee, I
don't trust you right now, and you should know why' - obviously, after calling
a fucking ambulance. The doctors would ask over and over, and talk with the
next of kin if there was a serious problem.
I have a serious problem with that callous line. How am I
meant to like Sophie in any way at all?
Her mum went into hospital for five weeks and was diagnosed
for depression. Five weeks? I had a
life threatening illness which required intensive treatments ... I was there
for two weeks. They would not give up a bed for five weeks to one person, no
matter how suicidal they are. They would move them to a psychiatric hospital,
or a long-term ward where they would stay for longer than five weeks, and only
be allowed out infrequently. Like, a friend of mine has bi-polar, and a few
years ago she blanked out after a shift. She did two more shifts after this
started happening, and then got placed on the psych ward. I saw her about a
month later, when she was allowed out for the weekend, but in that time she was
monitored. This carried on for a few months, and then she got to leave with
regular check-ups and a change in her medication.
I really, really despise Giovanna's lack of research into
these things.
Anyway, the upshot of her mother's attempt was she got talked
about at school, and she ignored everyone because who needs friends when
neither of your parents are able to take care of you? (And at seventeen,
wouldn't Sophie still have been placed in temporary care until her mother was
of sound mind again?) And Sophie decided to never leave her mother, ever, so
she wouldn't be sad any more.
I won't even point out that she's sad whether you're there
or not.
That's the entirety of chapter seven. But just to make up
for that, chapter 8 looks super long. Once it's done ... we'll be on to part
two. Joy.
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