Critical Thinking Question Reading Response

 Critical Thinking Question: At what points do you feel yourself resisting from the book, characters or authors? What does your resistance say about the book, and what does it say about you?

        When reading books, it's easy to figure out what's right and wrong in what's happening to the character. In the book What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen I feel resistance towards Mcleans situation. There are many points on the book where the flippancy of which McLean talks about her life situation makes me feel awkward, sorry, a little disturbed yet grateful all at the same time. Mclean's mom walked out on Mclean's dad for his famous basketball idol and with that Mclean moved in with her dad. After, she's a complete different person and it has changed not only her, but Mclean's life completely.
Mclean Sweet has been switching the town in which she lives in almost yearly since her mom walked out on her and her dad and with the moves, she changes her name and personality with it. She has been Eliza, Lizbet, Beth, and finally just Mclean again. With the names she changed from popular, to drama geek then to the yearbook-school president-school absorbed girl. Every time she mentioned these changes I felt myself holding back, resisting, towards the book. It's the fact that she took it as normal and felt strange that people referred to her as her real name that I started to feel sorry for her. On pages 6-7 Mclean is explaining all of her name changes and personalities and how it just came to her, that it was normal and I started to feel so bad that she never got to be herself and that she took this as such a normal thing. I felt myself feeling strangely about it and feeling really bad for her that she didn't even know who she really is anymore all because of her mom being rude and not thinking about Mclean and her dad. This is one thing in What Happened to Goodbye that made me resist from the book.
When Mclean's mom and dad divorced it wasn't the normal "we're unhappy" situation. Since college, Mclean's dad's beloved basketball team was Defriese. So now, after being happily married and changing from the spoiled child she was, Mclean's mom had an affair with the Defriese coach and left Mclean and her father for him. As if this isn't a weird enough, sad enough and big enough change, Mclean's dad got a new job from the restaurant that him and his ex-wife owned together, that requires him to fix up restaurants that need help, this means that Mclean gets to spend one year at a place then has to move. Mclean goes from having the near to perfect, happy family in the place she lived in her whole life to having her mom being heartless and never being able to settle down. This is one big thing that makes me resist from the book. It's such a strange and sad situation and although Mclean cares about it and is sour towards her mom because of it, she doesn't act up or talk about it. She treats it as a normal divorce and although that's better than rebelling, it's so extreme and makes me feel slightly uncomfortable. It's a terrible thing to happen and the flippancy being used to describe it is a little too weird. This is another thing that makes me resist from the book.
A final thing in What Happened to a Goodbye that bought resistance was when I understood just how much Mclean's mom really had changed. On page 172 Mclean describes her mom as she was as a rich teenager, as her dad's wife and as she is now and I began to see that she went from a popular rich girl dating a congress mans son, to Katie Sweet who had a messy pony tail and her appearance was last priority and then to Katherine Hamilton, the rich basketball coaches wife who had a horrific scandal but was then the high class, high maintenance mother of twins. When she was Katie Sweet she was a family woman who ran the family business and always put her husband and daughter first where as she then decided to heartlessly leave her husband in an instant and try to take his daughter too, this completely changed her to the point where money is priority and although she tries for her daughter, she has forgotten about how they used to be, including their tradition of going to a low class motel just because they love the spot on the beach and has completely disowned who she used to be. This is a final thing that for me, bought resistance to the book.
What Happened to Goodbye brought up many spots of resistance. This was caused by Mclean's personality changes during her yearly moves, when Mclean states how she her mum walked out on her and her dad, and finally when the changes of Mclean's mom after leaving her dad are described. This shows how tough Mclean's situation is and these are just a few of the situations that she is in that portray the resistance while reading. This is why I felt resistance from Sarah Dessen's What Happened to Goodbye.