Johnny is thirteen and before his twin sister was kidnapped he seemed to have a pretty normal life.
He lived with both of their parents in a four bedroom home where none of them expected to ever leave. But when Alyssa was grabbed off of the side of the road while walking home everything in ther worlds changed.
Johnny's family fell apart. His father left for Michigan a month later feeling guilty over Alyssa's kidnapping. He blamed himself thinking that ha could have just saved her had he picked her up from school, but he stayed late at work instead. What I thought was interesting after he left was his mother's reaction. It's stated multiple times that Johnny and Alyssa looked exactly alike and that Johnny had not changed at all since they last saw his sister. But it was never mentioned that it was hard for either of his parents to be around him because of this.
That and there is no guild mentioned that his mother harbors. It's only known that she starts going into a depression, dates an abusive guy her husband used to work with, gets into hard drugs, and begins to neglect Johnny. She also allows said boyfriend to abuse Johnny however he pleases to the point when Johnny's only friend is used to seeing new bruises on him whenever they occur. She becomes completely detached to her son and yet he still takes care of her.
He teaches himself how to drive their car in order to stock the house with food, he makes her breakfast each morning, he makes sure that she hasn't overdosed on anything each morning too, despite her neglecting him he still cares about her like she were the mother he had before the incident. It's especially strange to see that he doesn't want to go to his father, he doesn't blame him for leaving but he never even thinks of leaving to go to him. He often refuses help from the police officer working on his sister's case too, simply because he wants to protect his mother. He feels like he is the only person who can keep her safe, especially from her boyfriend. But she is said to have given up on life, she doesn't care what has happened to her or what happens to her.
Johnny's mother is all that he has to cling onto, to at least remind him of the normalcy of their lives before Alyssa was kidnapped. She is painted to be a terrible mother that let grief completely take over her life, but she's also her child's safety blanket.
This book sounds like I would be interested in it. I like books about this type of thing (a kidnapping). Mystery is one of my favorite genre's, one that I would like to read more of. What is important about this book? I mean what do you think is the overall message? Its interesting that the dad leaves the other kid behind; usually, one would think that the dad would become more involved with his other kid. However, I also have never experienced that pain of having a family member taken by another human. How does his mother let him get beat by her boyfriend? What I don't understand is that I know that it would be painful to lose a child, but eventually life has to go on and living in the past can be unhealthy. Being consumed by yourself is not a good way to live your life. As Heideggar would say "the awareness and acceptance of death is a requirement for authentic existence." Why do you think the writer wrote the book this way? to get the reader hooked, or to get the reader mad?
ReplyDeleteThis sounds pretty mysterious. I'm confused on something though, if his father felt guilty for allowing his daughter to get kidnapped, why would his solution be to leave the rest of his family to deal with it by themselves? That seems really childish and backwards. Anyways, it's sad that that type of stuff seems to happen a lot. When something traumatic happens, some people get into a spiraling path of destruction and more trauma, like his mother. She went from happy family to her daughter disappearing, husband leaving, finding an abusive new boyfriend, becoming depressed, and turning to drugs. All of those got increasingly bad for her. While Johnny's father takes the guilt out on himself (Even though leaving his family alone hurt them too), while his mother takes it out on herself unconsciously. She is just hurting herself more and more. Maybe he sees something in his mother that he saw before the incident. Maybe he feels bad for her and thinks it isn't her fault that she fell into this spiraling path. Also, maybe he isn't upset with his father for leaving, but doesn't join him because he thinks it was a weak choice to leave them behind. I think he is stuck on the idea of how is was before, and hopes that it could get back to that point one day. This seems like an interesting book, and there is probably a lot goin on, but it seems a little too depressing for me to read.
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