Blog Post #24: Just Another Hero

        I am currently reading Just Another Hero by Sharon M. Draper. I am up to page 40, and so far it's just talking about the lives of a few senior students. The author puts only Arielle Gresham and Kofi Freeman's point of view in the chapters that I've read so far, but we also know some other characters too: November, Jericho, Osrick, and etc.

          Firstly, we meet Arielle. She talks about how she used to be popular and used to be with her usual group of friends. On page 5, she said she had "treated her friends like dirt". She says that in the beginning of the school year, she had a boyfriend to flaunt and lots of girlfriends to hang out with. The ultimate "popular girl". She tells that because she treated them like dirt, she lost all her friends in a few months. For example, she reminisced about her past, about how she laughed at her "friend" November, who got pregnant last year. Arielle would laugh and say that she was fat and stupid to get pregnant. She says "she's never even told November how sorry she was about Josh's death", Josh being November's boyfriend. I found that funny because Arielle had called November her friend. Even if they're not friends now, how were they friends before that, with Arielle treating November like that? She also thought about another girl she made fun of, and thinks to herself, "how could I have done that?" I think right from the start we are taught an important lesson. When you treat someone like dirt, you will get the same treatment after along with regret. To make it more generalized, it's like the saying "that's what you get".

         Josh Prescott was November's boyfriend. He died a tragic death. A group of boys had to jump from a second-story window as part of pledging a club called the Warriors of Distinction. From this event, I could tell that some people in their high school are immature. Not only that, but I think that their school is the kind of school with people in it who have expectations. High ones. They expect you and want you to be something. In the very beginning of the book Osrick Wardley got bullied by two big guys. Arielle heard the noise and went to see what was wrong. One of the guys was filming and the other was tormenting Osrick. They even took off his pants and threw them in the pool. Arielle had described him as "a magnet for guys who liked to act tough" it's obvious Osrick gets bullied a lot of times. This shows the way some people in her school think: if you don't fit in the group, you don't belong and you should be ashamed. It's sad how this really happens. I think it's the high expectations that cause situations like these in schools.

        Something else that doesn't really relate to the previous two paragraphs is Arielle's step father, Chadwick Kensington O'Neil. Chad gives Arielle and her mother money, but at the end of the week, every single little penny has to be counted up. All receipts must be kept to keep track of what/ how the money is being used. When he tallies up the total amount, he sees how much money has to be left over and he must get back the exact amount of money that is left over. After Arielle's mother's expenses, were tallied up, Chad asked for Arielle to go into his office. I found something wrong with that because it seems like Chad is the master. The way he orders them around, the way he gives them money but has to have everything tallied up. When Chad discovered a Coke stain on his expensive carpet, he punished Arielle by saying she has to pay for it, but it's basically her getting no allowance (because she has no other money than her allowance, which is given to her by Chad). I can definitely see that Arielle Hates Chad. When she finished speaking with him, she tells her mother how she feels, how Chad is a control freak, how she's disgusted that her mother gives Chad all her money, etc. But her mother says that it's just a "minor inconvenience" and then says that she will buy Arielle a new outfit after that. There is clearly something wrong with bother Arielle's mother and step-father. Her mother wants the money, period. She likes that Chad gives her money, even if it means giving her own salary into his bank account. We can see that she wants to please Chad any way possible and she never wants to upset her. She seems like she's hypnotized by Chad. She thinks it's fine what Chad does, even when her own daughter doesn't approve of him and confronts her about it. She kind of reminds me of women who get physically abused, yet are still staying with who ever is abusing them.

          I'm only in the beginning of the book and I can already see themes/ issues of the characters in the book. I actually didn't look forward to reading this book because it looked like just another one of those books about bullied. But I like this book especially, because the emotional feelings are described well. I think Sharon M. Draper did a good job on the character's traits, emotional-wise.