Made You Up Characters

When reading a book, especially one involving supernatural or uncommon occurrences, it may be difficult for the reader to draw parallels to modern day society. The reader may be blinded by the protagonist’s unusual predicament or attribute. However, under all of that lies situations, events, and themes that can be connected to our own society. Every book has some sort of connection to modern day society. In Made You Up by Francesca Zappia, Alex is a high school senior living in Hannibal’s Rest, Indiana. At first glance she may seem like a normal girl, minus her vivid red hair. However, at the age of thirteen, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and paranoia. She goes through life everyday searching her food for trackers and looking for communists

One of the main themes presented in Made You Up by Francesca Zappia is do not judge a book by its cover, which also plays an immense role in our society today. Alex sadly falls victim to this judgement at the end of the novel. However, at the beginning most of Alex’s classmates, saw her as just a normal girl, even though she is afflicted by paranoia and schizophrenia. For those of them who do find out about her disabilities, most of them only view her as a safety hazard who could explode at any moment. None of these assumptions are correct, but they are brought upon because of the extreme prejudice linked to mental illnesses. Sadly for Alex, she falls victim to being judged because of her schizophrenia and paranoia. Even Alex’s mom is sometimes blinded by her conditions and starts to talk to her differently, “‘Alexandra, you need to eat.’ I hated that voice. Alexandra, you need to eat. Alexandra, you need to take your pills…” (Zappia 53) The prejudice brought on by mental illnesses causes people to see her differently,

She has to live through everyday fearing that what she sees may not be real, but she also has the fear that someone will find out her secret. She doesn’t want any of her classmates or anyone outside her family knowing that she has schizophrenia. This is driven by her need to be accepted by others without the judgement that would be brought on because of her conditions. Sadly, there has been a stigma placed on mental illness that has caused most people to have a negative view on it. For this reason, Alex feels the need to hid her mental illnesses from the rest of the world. For example, while conversing with one of her fellow employees, Alex tells herself, “Beat down the crazy, said the little voice in the back of my head. Don’t let it out, you idiot. The only reason I’d taken the job here was because I needed to appear normal.” (Zappia 5) This shows how Alex faces an internal conflict just about everyday. The conflict between her schizophrenia and paranoia against her need to be accepted and seen as normal. This need to be accepted and seen as normal by others, especially by our peers, is felt by just about everyone in our society. Most of the decisions we make every day is somehow affected by what other people think. For example, the clothes we wear and the items we buy are almost always based off of the newest trend. There is a big reason why