During the second quarter, I read a book called We Were Liars by E.Lockhart. This novel is about a girl named Cadence Sinclair who lives her life without knowing what happened during a summer vacation. One of her biggest obstacles is having to be what her mother wants her to be, a Sinclair. She has to live without being able to show emotion or weakness. The Sinclairs were born to be as perfect as possible. Even though at moments Cadence feels tired of her own life, she keeps on living without being able to express herself. She goes through so many obstacles but seems to survive each one of them. Her love life does play a role in distracting her from her problems, however, her character is mainly what makes her be able to pass her troubles. She is a strong character with the ability to show strength when there is only weakness. Cadence impacts me because she represents the strength needed to go through tough times. Human beings are fragile and delicate when talking about feelings. We can get joyful easily, however, as well as melancholy. I can relate to Cadence because she like everyone suffers for reasons that are common in today's world, such as a divorce. Children who have parents who are going through a separation are at a crucial moment of their life because the people they most love will not be together anymore. The family becomes broken when a divorce occurs. This is not easy for a kid to understand or get used to. In addition, Cadence has to act like the person she was put to be by her mother's family. I can connect to this because sometimes us teenagers while growing notice that we don't want the same things our parents want for us. Of course, we don't hate our parents, however, we want to live our dreams and not the desires our parents wanted for themselves.
Cadence is such a marvelous character because despite of everything she faced growing up, she doesn't revolt and only wants to pursue what her mother has planned out for her. Also, I commend her for being able to bottle up her emotions, and acting like everything is fine even though she is having a difficult time. After reading this, I became so intrigued to the novel since you described Cadence so well, this is definitely a book that I hope to read in the future.
ReplyDeleteSetting expectations too high can be counterproductive and set children up for emotional distress. Parents should set realistic expectations and something to strive for rather than internally harming their child. Cadence should not have to fit into the mold her parents created for her and instead do what she enjoys.
ReplyDeleteThis book illustrates clearly how attempting to live vicariously through another largely works to the disadvantage of both persons. I'm actually reading this book right now, and it's pretty obvious from the start that neither Cadence nor her mother are legitimately happy given the effects of her mother's manipulative tendencies. As you said, the expectations parents set are often those they wish they could have fulfilled themselves. Unfortunately, even if their children do fulfill these expectations, it seems a parent would never feel the same satisfaction as that attained by achieving said goal for themselves.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like the main character Candace was a very strong character. When ever life decided to knock her down she would get right back . Thai is a very inspiring and longed quality . They really seems like it would be a novel to hook you in .
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