The Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein is a gothic novel inspired by a mentally ill girl's diary she wrote when she was a junior at a girl's boarding school. It is mainly about her delusions about a mysterious new girl, her unhealthy obsession with her best friend, and unusual accidents that happen around her school all while dealing with multiple mental disorders and family tragedy.
As you can notice, the narrator is not at all reliable. I the novel, almost all she writes about is her best friend Lucy and her growing interest with a new girl name Ernessa. The narrator is furiously jealous of the two's friendship, which in return makes her despise Ernessa. She tells the readers about how Lucy and her used to have a very tight friendship and how she made her forget about her father's suicide when she first came to the school. After Lucy and Ernessa become inseparable, the narrator starts having flashbacks and nightmares about the tragedy, which tells the readers that without Lucy's companionship, she can't deal with what happened to her. I think this is the reason why the protagonist goes on a downward spiral as the book progresses; her obsession with Lucy was partly because she provided her a world away from her troubled past and as the two girls drift apart, the narrator is forced to face to her painful past.
However, because we already know the narrator has psychological disorders, she ignores what's really going on and instead blames her issues on Ernessa. She becomes infatuated with the girl, following her at night, accusing her of ridiculous things and digging into her past just to find something unusual about her. She also blames odd occurrences happening around her school on her. For instance, when the headmistress's dog is killed, she convinces herself that Ernessa was responsible for it. Another very peculiar thing about the narrator and Ernessa is that they seem to be very similar to each other. The narrator notes that she is the only other Jew in the school and has dark hair and pale skin just like her. Also, Ernessa's father had committed suicide too. A particularly odd part in the book was when the narrator, as her and Ernessa stare at their reflection on the window, notes that they resemble each other so much. Her friends note it too throughout the book. This was the part where I realized that the book might have even more plot twists, and that Ernessa may just be an alter ego the narrator had created, as she has borderline personality disorder. I am not sure yet if this is the case, but it is a very interesting and likely theory.
Overall, as you can note, the narrator of this book is very unreliable, which makes it hard for the reader to distinguish whether the events in the book really happen or not. However, it also adds a twist to the story and makes the book more captivating and enjoyable.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Blog Review on Maddie's Blog Post
Recently, I have read Maddie's blog post about Tina Fey's Bossypants. According to her, it focuses on Tina Fey's struggles involving her career at Saturday Night Live, the issues surrounding female identity in our society and her "awkward" childhood and how she sought to become more comfortable with herself.
Maddie's blog post is short, well-structured and interesting. It feels more like a book review than a student's blog post. One thing that I really admired in her piece was how she inserted her own opinions while retelling the story of the book. This way, she didn't have to do a monotone summary of the book then talk about her opinions and ideas regarding the story, which, sometimes, I do. This is a boring and easy way of basically copying the author's ideas in a paragraph then writing about your thoughts in another. Maddie has done a wonderful job in abandoning this strategy.
Maddie's blog post is short, well-structured and interesting. It feels more like a book review than a student's blog post. One thing that I really admired in her piece was how she inserted her own opinions while retelling the story of the book. This way, she didn't have to do a monotone summary of the book then talk about her opinions and ideas regarding the story, which, sometimes, I do. This is a boring and easy way of basically copying the author's ideas in a paragraph then writing about your thoughts in another. Maddie has done a wonderful job in abandoning this strategy.
Another thing I really liked about Maddie's piece was how she talked about the author's ideas and thoughts as if she was in the author herself. "She was very aware that everywhere people are being judged for what they do and how they look." For example, in this excerpt from her blog post, while she is obviously talking about the author's thoughts it almost seems like she is talking about herself. This indicates that she connects to the story very much and understands the author's ideas and opinions so much that she is comfortable to speak about her thoughts without expressing doubt. She doesn't state the author's thoughts by beginning her sentences with "I think" or "I believe". This quality makes her writing unique.
After reading Maddie's blog post about this popular book, it has persuaded me into looking into it. By the way she describes the author's purpose and the themes in the book, it sounds like a very interesting story. However, Maddie also states that apart from being entertaining, the book gives valuable life lessons. "I read this book with the intention of reading something entertaining over the summer, but it happened to tell a very inspiring story of leadership." By adding this at the very end of her piece, she leaves the readers thinking about how great of a book Bossypants seems like, a both fun and inspirational. It is obvious that Maddie was greatly affected by this book.
After reading Maddie's blog post about this popular book, it has persuaded me into looking into it. By the way she describes the author's purpose and the themes in the book, it sounds like a very interesting story. However, Maddie also states that apart from being entertaining, the book gives valuable life lessons. "I read this book with the intention of reading something entertaining over the summer, but it happened to tell a very inspiring story of leadership." By adding this at the very end of her piece, she leaves the readers thinking about how great of a book Bossypants seems like, a both fun and inspirational. It is obvious that Maddie was greatly affected by this book.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
The Moth Diaries
The Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein is an engrossingly disturbing book consisting of real diary entries of a sixteen year old girl who we know firsthand from the preface has "borderline personality disorder complicated by depression and psychosis" and records her time at an exclusive all-girls boarding school. The subject of her growing obsession, however, is her best friend Lucy and her friendship with a charming and mysterious new student Ernessa who speaks many languages fluently and has a rotten, mildewy stench radiating from her room. As strange things start happening around the school and Lucy becomes increasingly ill, so does the narrator's paranoia and her doubts begin to lead to a dangerous delusion.
I just received Moth Diaries in the mail a few days ago and although I haven't had time to read many pages, I already knew from the preface that it was going to be one of the best books I would read. Personally, I love Gothic literature, unreliable narrators and books written in a diary format and this book is a perfect fit for all of those.
Starting from the preface of the novel, the author explains how her old therapist had contacted her after rereading her journal she wrote when she was sixteen and suggested it to be published. The reason behind this, he had claimed, was that "it was relatively rare for someone to recover from borderline personality disorder complicated by depression and psychosis to recover and never have another 'episode'". After changing all recognizable information and names, the author had decided to publish her diary. Just reading this two paged preface gave me the chills and I understood then that this book wouldn't be an easy read-- and I was right. As I began to read the book, I noticed that some elements of her observations and "recordings" were hard to distinguish in the terms of what was real and what was not. For example, as I mentioned above, the narrator believes that there is a "rotten" smell coming from the new girl Ernessa's room. While she holds a strong opinion on the subject, none of her friends can smell the stench. The readers also develop their growing skepticism towards the narrator as she becomes more and more consumed on her writing class on supernatural fiction literature, where they study classics like Carmilla and Dracula.
While it is obvious by the first pages of the novel that the narrator isn't to be trusted, there are also other signals that make the readers question whether the narrator's delusions about Ernessa can be real. For instance, after her best friend Lucy starts spending an increasing amount of time with Ernessa, it is visible by not just the narrator but her friends also that her behavior and well-being changes drastically. At first, her cheeks become flushed and her eyes gleam as if she's getting more attractive than before. A friend claims that she looks as if she's "in love". Her behavior, however, changes from sweet and understanding to increasingly exhausted and frantic. In time, she starts losing a lot weight and many express concerns about her well-being. While all of this prove the narrator's point, there are still logical reasons behind every unnatural occurring and the readers are sucked into the narrator's nightmarish world as fantasy mixes in with reality and everything suddenly becomes hard to distinguish in terms of whether it's valid or supernatural.
I just received Moth Diaries in the mail a few days ago and although I haven't had time to read many pages, I already knew from the preface that it was going to be one of the best books I would read. Personally, I love Gothic literature, unreliable narrators and books written in a diary format and this book is a perfect fit for all of those.
Starting from the preface of the novel, the author explains how her old therapist had contacted her after rereading her journal she wrote when she was sixteen and suggested it to be published. The reason behind this, he had claimed, was that "it was relatively rare for someone to recover from borderline personality disorder complicated by depression and psychosis to recover and never have another 'episode'". After changing all recognizable information and names, the author had decided to publish her diary. Just reading this two paged preface gave me the chills and I understood then that this book wouldn't be an easy read-- and I was right. As I began to read the book, I noticed that some elements of her observations and "recordings" were hard to distinguish in the terms of what was real and what was not. For example, as I mentioned above, the narrator believes that there is a "rotten" smell coming from the new girl Ernessa's room. While she holds a strong opinion on the subject, none of her friends can smell the stench. The readers also develop their growing skepticism towards the narrator as she becomes more and more consumed on her writing class on supernatural fiction literature, where they study classics like Carmilla and Dracula.
While it is obvious by the first pages of the novel that the narrator isn't to be trusted, there are also other signals that make the readers question whether the narrator's delusions about Ernessa can be real. For instance, after her best friend Lucy starts spending an increasing amount of time with Ernessa, it is visible by not just the narrator but her friends also that her behavior and well-being changes drastically. At first, her cheeks become flushed and her eyes gleam as if she's getting more attractive than before. A friend claims that she looks as if she's "in love". Her behavior, however, changes from sweet and understanding to increasingly exhausted and frantic. In time, she starts losing a lot weight and many express concerns about her well-being. While all of this prove the narrator's point, there are still logical reasons behind every unnatural occurring and the readers are sucked into the narrator's nightmarish world as fantasy mixes in with reality and everything suddenly becomes hard to distinguish in terms of whether it's valid or supernatural.
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