Comparison Of Belly And Conrad

A person cannot lose his or her ability to age. It comes annually, without permission, and only small reminder of days ticking by on a calendar. It never really occurred to me before reading this book, but it seems that there are some things in life that just can’t be lost or taken away. For Belly Conklin, her summers are one of those things. Something she can count down to, wait for and finally have without fault every year. That is, until Susana dies. A woman so close to her, she might as well have been Belly’s second mother. Belly’s summer is gone, her ex-boyfriend (Conrad, Susana’s son) is spiraling out of control with grief for his dead mother, and Jeremiah (Conrad’s brother, Susana’s other son) and Conrad can’t get along for the life

It just wouldn’t be a “proper” work of teen fiction without a love triangle. I do, however think it’s weird that its between “Belly and Conrad” and “Belly and Jeremiah”, I mean c’mon they’re brothers. That’s kind of cruel. Besides the obvious issues, Jeremiah, loves Belly, Belly loves Conrad and Conrad is obviously too emotionally scarred to love anyone, *barfs forever* Jeremiah have always had their issues. Could they really be brothers if they didn’t? One memory Jeremiah reflects on is particularly upsetting in his relationship with his brother. It’s about his father; he’s remembering him and Conrad wrestling. Jeremiah had won and he was waiting for his father to say good job, to acknowledge that he was proud of him. “He didn’t say, “Good job, Jere.” He just started criticizing Conrad, telling him all the things he could’ve done better. And Conrad took it… Then he nodded at me and said, in a way that I knew he really meant it, “Good job, Jere.” That’s when my dad chimed in… I didn’t want to beat Conrad ever again. It wasn’t worth it,” (Han 447). I took this quote two ways, the first being Jeremiah’s longing for his father to notice his effort and ability. The other way I interpreted it was Jeremiah trying to save Conrad from their father’s criticism. It wasn’t worth it. Jeremiah spent his whole life looking up to Conrad, the boy who couldn’t lose. “He’s always been smarter, faster¬–just better. The thing is, I never really begrudged him for

Susana is a character I couldn’t help falling in love with in the first book. Imagine how many tearstains there were on my book pages when I found out my favorite character was dead. I’m talking Sirius Black, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, kind of tears. Susana had cancer, which the reader learns she died from at the beginning of the second book. I think it’s safe to say that most people have been affected in some way by cancer. It’s a terrible disease and I’d love to meet a person that would argue with me, just so that I can punch them in the face. I know a few people that would call what happened to Susana “person vs. fate”, but as I previously stated, I don’t believe in fate. I believe in nature and people, palpable, visible things. Here’s something visible, a woman fighting for her life. A woman becoming brittle and weak, swollen and deathly thin all at the same, a woman torn down to nothing more than a gravestone and a shortened lifetime worth of memories. That’s what nature does to people. That’s what it did to Susana and everyone who loved her. It took away what they loved and left them with all the memories. And that’s not even the worst part: nature always wins. Maybe not right away but eventually. Susana fought valiantly, it just wasn’t enough. I know that makes me sound like a cynic, but really, who has a chance standing up against nature? It steals all my favorite