Coming of Age post #1

 ALL OF MY POSTS ARE SPOILERS

For the current coming of age unit that we are in,  the book that I chose to read was "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson.  The main character,  Melinda Sordino,  is a freshman in high school.  She has no real friends, and she rarely says a word.  Melinda is trying to hide something,  the thing that made her loose all of her friends,  the thing that made her be mute, and the thing that made her how she is, but she just won't tell anyone about it.  Not even the reader.  Yet.  (However, it is a little bit obvious...  Perhaps this is on purpose.) Melinda is having a hard time carrying on, she even tries to kill herself at one point.  However,  Her mother sees her and stops her.  Her mother is smart and thinks that people who commit suicide are immature.  She thinks that they are weak.

I also think that Melinda is weak by trying to commit suicide.  Even if the horrible, awful, life changing thing that happened to her is eating her up from inside,  She should at least tell someone!  From what I have learned from living is that if you have a secret problem that you haven't told anyone about,  you should let it out and tell someone.  If she keeps it locked up inside of her,  she probably will end up killing herself.  Because people have told me,  I know what happened to Melinda, and t is awful.  In fast, it is probably one of the most terrible things that could ever happen.  But honestly,  If she wants to feel any better about it,  she should tell someone.  It is like a balloon.  If Melinda is the balloon,  air is the secret.  The more time goes by,  the more air gets blown in.  Eventually,  the balloon bursts. 

What the author is trying it say about childhood is that as a kid, you don't always make the right decisions.  However, there should always be someone there when you are a child to help you get out of the trouble which that wrong decision caused.  However,  if there is no one there to help fix that problem,  The child is forever doomed. However, Ms Robbins chose this as a Coming of age Novel, not  a childhood experiences book.  There's a twist.  If there is no one there to help the wrongdoing child, the child can become an adult and help him or herself.  What the author is trying to say is that in order to become an adult, a child must learn to be strong and help themselves. 

I guess that the author is trying to say that adulthood is when you can fix the things that you have done wrong.  A child has to get an adult to fix their problems for them,  But an adult can be totally self-sufficient.  An adult is like a deflation knob on an over- full balloon.  although an adult cannot always solve everything,  they are able to handle and think through their problems much better than children can.