chapter 2

Well I don’t know why I didn’t realize this before, but I noticed that this book has five chapters, which leaves one chapter exactly in the middle, kinda like Portrait. I don’t know if it means anything, I think that its just on my mind because we just finished the book, but maybe its also a mirror! Anyway, this chapter is really sad, and makes me hate people, like I said earlier, the mother does the weirdest things, she is not helpful in situations, and makes me really mad; no wonder the girls are all crazy, their mother forces them to feel that way. During the funeral, Mrs. Lisbon doesn’t seem like she is mourning at all, when she walks past the coffin she looks in and says ‘“Look at her nails.’… ‘Couldn’t they do something about her nails?’” I understand that she wants her daughter to look nice and everything, but that’s too much. She doesn’t care at all about the fact that she has died all she cares about it that she looks presentable. I think that she is the reason Cecilia killed herself. Not only is it difficult enough to feel confident being a teenager, but Mrs. Lisbon makes her seem like she isn’t beautiful. Even after she has died. I just really hate her! And the fact that she didn’t dress her in the wedding dress makes me so mad, and shows that she doesn’t care about her daughter at all.

beginning

This book has a very interesting technique, from the first chapter, basically the first page, we are given the end; we know that the girls die. I know that the title gives it away, but usually the book doesn’t give it from the beginning, and we already find out how one of the girls tried to do it, right from the second page, everything is very fast. Another thing I thought was very strange and interesting was how in the beginning we are being told about the girl, and we begin to understand the girls and their thoughts, and I thought that being that the girls must be insecure, and obviously suicidal, that their parents would be making them sound perfect, almost to correct their problems, but instead I get the feeling that she is making them out to be less than perfect. “’She used to tease her hair because she thought it was limp.’” Nothing is said to make it feel negative, but the whole tone and mood of the passage leaves it feeling depressing, she sounds like she is speaking of her daughter in a negative way. Why would she speak of her like that is her daughter already feels negative about herself. I just don’t really get it.