Love Aubrey By Suzanne Lafleur: Character Analysis

Audrey Hepburn once said “People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed and redeemed. Never throw anyone out.” Everyone wants to feel like they have someone to restore them- to make them whole again. The characters in Love, Aubrey don’t all have that privilege. Love, Aubrey is about a girl who loses her sister and father in a car accident, and soon after her mom leaves. Aubrey has to start a new life living with her grandmother in Vermont and learns how to deal with the grief of losing her family along the way. Without a doubt, Love Aubrey by Suzanne LaFleur deserves to will the Rebecca Caudill Award because of its sensational conflict, unbelievable characterization, and powerful theme.

One reason Love, Aubrey

The characteristic of Bridget are developed when she meets Aubrey for the first time. After Aubrey’s ordeal of having to move to Vermont with her grandmother when her mother abandons her, Aubrey meets a new friend who lives next to her grandmother’s house. Her friend's name is Bridget, she is the same age as Aubrey, and they will go to the same school in the fall. Bridget's statement when she first meets Aubrey proves she’s observant when the novel says, “She looked up. ‘You have a scar on your forehead,’ she said. Usually people ask, or stare, ‘How did you get that scar on your head?’ Bridget made it seem normal” (Lafleur 48). Without a doubt this statement shows that Bridget is intuitive because she made a statement pointing out that Aubrey had a scare rather than what anyone else would do which it ask Aubrey questions about the scar. By saying something like this to Aubrey when they first meet gives Aubrey the impression that Bridget isn’t like other kids and a new friendship might start because of it. For this reason Love, Aubrey by Suzanne LaFleur deserves to win the Rebecca Caudill award because of its amazing use of

The theme, taking the tragedy in our lives and turning them into opportunities to show compassion, care and and empathy is conveyed when conflicts arise. In the novel, Aubrey starts making more and more friends once the school year starts. For instance in one for her classes there is a boy named Marcus who is a trouble maker. Aubrey and Marcus become friends and get closer. At a party Marcus confides in Aubrey telling her that he makes trouble because his dad left his family. Aubrey connects to him because she herself knew what it felt like for a parent to leave her. This is proved by Marcus’s statement when he says “‘My dad left. He left last year.’ ‘I’m really sorry,’ I said. ‘My dad left because I was bad.’ ‘No, Marcus that’s not why.’ ‘It was. I could never sit still. I could never be quiet’ (LaFleur 159). This quote clearly shows that Aubrey is empathetic and caring towards Marcus because she personally knows what it feels like to be abandoned and to blame yourself for the outcome. Showing empathy and compassion is something Aubrey is not used to doing because she hasn’t met anyone who has had an experience like the one she’s had with her family’s car crash and her mother leaving. This theme changes the story completely because Aubrey now has someone to talk to and who she can connect with on a deeper level. Consequently this powerful theme taking the tragedy