Maybe lying is not the free key to an open door. Rachel Vail’s Thirteen And A Half and Gary Soto’s Seventh Grade share the same theme of to just tell the truth. While they share the same theme, both stories reach the theme different ways. First off, Thirteen And A Half and Seventh Grade both teach the audience to just tell the truth. In Thirteen And A Half, it has Ashley's mother who is the one lying to her daughter Ashley to try and keep her happy. However, when Ashley finds out, she explodes. For example on page four Ashley says, “Get Out! Get Out of my room! I want to be alone with sweet pea, or who ever this is! Get Out!” ( Rachel ). Even though Ashley's mom was just trying to keep her happy, Ashley went down the angry road, now Ashley is mad at her mom. Also in Seventh Grade, Victor (the main character) has a crush on a girl named Teresa, so he joined a french class with her trying to impress her. For example on page 121, the author claims, “Then he went to the public library, where he checked out three french books” (Gary) Similar to Thirteen And A Half, Victor does not know …show more content…
While one reaches the moral by lying to impress his crush, the other story is lying to keep others happy. For example on page 120 of Seventh Grade, the author says, “he tried to bluff his way out of it by making noises that sounded like french.” this is significant because the teacher called on Victor to answer a question, but he did not know it and tried to say random things. He didn't think he impressed Teresa, but he did. On the other hand, on page four of Thirteen And A Half, Ashley's mom says, “sweetpea was sort of a series of birds”. Even though, Ashley's mom lied to Ashley, she was just trying to keep Ashley happy and did not want to explain death to a three year old. (Ashley was three when she first got the bird). In all things, she just wanted her daughter to be happy, not