Perfect. Part 40

I was the chubby kid who suffered peer abuse. I had a b.u.mp on my nose (still do) and thought it made me ugly. I spent too many years hurting because I believed the mean things other kids said about me. But I refused to let their words make me become something I wasn't. And I blossomed inside. Finally one day I looked in the mirror and thought, Wow, I'm kind of pretty. My high school friends will tell you I was kind of pretty. I had lost the "chubby," but that isn't why. It was because I learned to let my inner light shine through. And so can you.

If someone only likes you because of the way you look, that someone isn't a friend, and definitely shouldn't be someone you want a relationship with. (Do you really want a guy to like you only because you've got big b.r.e.a.s.t.s? Or flip that. Do you really want a girl to like you only because you've got big muscles-I won't say what kind!?) There is a certain power in outer beauty. But if you possess great outer beauty and use it in the wrong way, it can come back to haunt you. Witness Jenna, in this book.

What we all strive for, ultimately, is love. You won't find real love because you're beautiful on the outside. It is drawn to inner beauty. Spend your energy crafting that, and you will know true love.

Some Statistics

a Anorexia and bulimia affect nearly ten million women and one million men (primarily teens and young adults) in reported cases in the United States, and both can be fatal.

a Anorexia nervosa has the highest premature fatality rate of any mental illness. At least one thousand people die every year from anorexia.

a The average age of sufferers is dropping rapidly (as young as elementary school), with peak onset among girls ages eleven to thirteen.

a It's estimated that another twenty-five million people suffer from binge eating disorder.

a Although teens make up just two percent of cosmetic surgery patients in the United States, these numbers are increasing. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, the number of procedures performed on kids aged thirteen to nineteen nearly doubled to 244,124 between 2002 and 2006.

A Reading Group Guide to Perfect by Ellen Hopkins ABOUT THE BOOK.

Everyone dreams about the perfect life, but an obsession with perfection can be crippling. Cara Sykes is beautiful, rich, and destined for Stanford. She has the seemingly ideal circ.u.mstance; however, unreal parental expectations have already sent her twin brother, Conner, to a psychiatric hospital for attempted suicide, and Cara herself, confused over her s.e.xual ident.i.ty, is afraid to admit that she is not s.e.xually drawn to her boyfriend, Sean, but rather to Danielle, a girl she meets s...o...b..arding. Her admission will destroy the perfect image her parents have impressed upon her. Sean O'Connell, a baseball star resolute on earning a scholarship to Stanford to be near Cara, pumps iron and takes steroids to become the perfect hitting machine, but the steroids send him into a spiral of rage. Paralleling their relationship is the story of two sisters, Kendra and Jenna Mathieson. Kendra, Conner's former girlfriend, will do anything to become a supermodel, including starving her 5'10" frame down to a size 2, having rhinoplasty and a breast augmentation, and having s.e.x with older men in the modeling world who promise to take her to the top. Jenna, wounded by living in the shadows of her "perfect" sister, pops pills, drinks, and flaunts her s.e.xuality. Andre Kane, Jenna's rich boyfriend, does not escape perfectionism-his mother is a plastic surgeon who turns image dreams into reality, and he himself, interested in becoming a professional dancer, fears sharing his pa.s.sion with his parents because they believe a perfect life includes a financially rewarding career. Driven by expectations, all five teens feel disempowered and fear not living up to expectations. In order to survive, they must find courage to stand up for who they really are.

PREREADING ACTIVITY.

Is perfection a reality or an unattainable abstraction? Explain.

In what ways do today's youth feel a need to be perfect?

Is the need for perfection self-imposed or is it caused by external forces? Why are some individuals more driven than others to be perfect? Explain.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS.

How does Cara view her parents? Describe her relationship with them. What happened to her brother, Conner?

Compare and contrast Kendra and Jenna. Are they close? Why or why not?

Why does Kendra's mother impress the importance of pageants upon Kendra? What effect does the pressure have?

Jenna appears not to be driven by perfection. In fact, she seems to retaliate against her parents' expectations, but she is self-destructive all the same. Explain.

Why does Jenna take Andre with her to have lunch with her father and his future wife? Why does she not feel good enough for Andre?

Sean begins as a likeable character, but as the story progresses he spins out of control. Why does he have difficulty accepting Cara's s.e.xuality?

Andre feels special affection for his grandparents. What did he learn about pursuing one's dreams from his grandfather? How are his decisions affected by his relationship with his grandparents?

Kendra believes "Empty is the perfect state of being" What does she mean? What other characters in the story would agree with her? How might they define empty?

Sean lost his parents at an early age. How might this loss affect his fear of losing Cara? How might it impact his behavior?

Cara says, "Transformation begins-and ends-inside of you." What accounts for this belief? What does it say about her ability to deal with her parents' expectations of her?

When Sean learns that Cara is no longer interested in him, he does not want to stop his anger. He says he doesn't want to stop it "because anger feels better than the pain of losing someone." Do you agree or disagree? What accounts for Sean's perspective?

In what way is Cara impacted by her brother's death? Her parents? What does Sean learn from Conner's death?

Shantell is a minor character in the story. In what way does she foil Jenna's personality? What does Andre learn about relationships from Shantell?

One might say Andre finds release in dancing. Explain.

Which character has the most difficult challenges to overcome? Why? Who is the most likely to succeed and why?

Compare and contrast Andre's mother and Cara's mother. Which mother is more capable of understanding the damage she may have caused as well as her son's or daughter's feelings? Who is more likely to admit she has made parenting mistakes?

How can an emphasis on perfection make an individual believe he/she is not worthy or good enough?

Activities: Identify pa.s.sages for the main characters that ill.u.s.trate their perspectives on and/or definition of love. Do their beliefs change throughout the story? What accounts for the way they define relationships? Write a short poem from the perspective of one character that ill.u.s.trates his/her perspective on male/female relationships.

Individuals who have been driven to be perfect often say they are afraid of failure. Why might this fear exist? Is it rational? Interview a family member or another older person about how he/she set goals in high school. What goals did they achieve and what or who influenced the choices they made? What fears did they have? What would they change now if given the chance?

Hopkins's work is rich in metaphor. Examine the metaphor that begins "Some people say love is fire." What does this metaphor tell readers about the complexities of love? Find other examples of metaphor in the text and discuss their meaning. Try your hand at writing your own metaphor for perfection.

Research statistics on teens and plastic surgery or steroid use. What trends do you see? What dangers exist for young people who undergo plastic surgery or who use steroids?

Guide prepared by Pam B. Cole, Professor of English Education & Literacy, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA.

This guide has been provided by Simon & Schuster for cla.s.sroom, library, and reading group use. It may be reproduced in its entirety or excerpted for these purposes.

Without Warning Sometimes your're traveling a highway, the only road you've ever known, and wham! A semi comes from nowhere and rolls right over you.

Sometimes you don't wake up.

But if you happen to, you know things will never be the same.

Sometimes that's not so bad.

Sometimes lives intersect, no rhyme, no reason, except, perhaps, for a pa.s.sing semi.

Triad

Three.

separate highways intersect at a place no reasonable person would ever want to go.

Three.

lives that would have been cut short, if not for hasty interventions by loved ones. Or Fate.

Three.

people, with nothing at all in common except age, proximity, and a wish to die.

Three.

tapestries, tattered at the edges and come unwoven to reveal a single mutual thread.

The Thread Wish you could turn off the questions, turn off the voices, turn off all sound.

Yearn to close out the ugliness, close out the filthiness, close out all light.

Long to cast away yesterday, cast away memory, cast away all jeopardy.

Pray you could somehow stop the uncertainty, somehow stop the loathing, somehow stop the pain.

Act on your impulse, swallow the bottle, cut a little deeper, put the gun to your chest.

Conner Arrival The gla.s.s doors swing open, in perfect sync, precisely timed so you don't have to think. Just stroll right in.

I doubt it's quite as easy to turn around and walk back outside, retreat to unstable ground. Home turf.

An orderly escorts me down spit-shined corridors, past tinted Plexiglas and closed, unmarked doors. Mysteries.

One foot in front of the other, counting tiles on the floor so I don't have to focus the blur of painted smiles, fake faces.

A mannequin in a tight blue suit, with a too-short skirt (and legs that can wear it), in a Betty Boop voice halts us.

I'm Dr. Boston. Welcome to Aspen Springs. I'll give you the tour. Paul, please take his things to the Redwood Room.

Aspen Springs. Redwood Room.

As if this place were a five-star resort, instead of a lockdown where crazies pace. Waiting.

At Least It doesn't have a hospital stink. Oh yes, it's all very clean, from cafeteria chairs to the bathroom sink. Spotless.

But the clean comes minus the gag-me smell, steeping every inch of that antiseptic h.e.l.l where they excised the d.a.m.nable bullet. I wonder what Dad said when he heard I tried to put myself six feet under-and failed.

I should have put the gun to my head, worried less about brain damage, more about getting dead. Finis.

Instead, I decided a shot through the heart would make it stop beating, rip it apart to bleed me out.

I couldn't even do that right. The bullet hit bone, left my heart in one piece.

In hindsight, luck wasn't with me that day. Mom found me too soon, or my pitiful life might have ebbed to the ground in arterial flow.

I thought she might die too, at the sight of so much blood and the thought of it staining her white Armani blouse.

Conner, what have you done?

she said. Tell me this was just an accident. She never heard my reply, never shed a tear.

I Don't Remember Much after that, except for speed. Ghostly red lights, spinning faster and faster, as I began to recede from consciousness. Floating through the ER doors, frenzied motion. A needle's sting. But I do remember, just before the black hole swallowed me, seeing Mom's face. Her furious eyes followed me down into sleep.

It's a curious place, the Land of Blood Loss and Anesthesia, floating through it like swimming in sand. Taxing.

After a while, you think you should reach for the shimmering surface. You can't hold your breath, and even if you could, it's dark and deep and bitter cold, where nightmares and truth collide, and you wonder if death could unfold fear so real. Palpable.

So you grope your way up into the light, to find you can't move, with your arms strapped tight and overflowing tubes.

And everything hits you like a train at full speed. Voices.

Strange faces. A witches' stewpot of smells. Pain. Most of all, pain.

Tony Just Saw A new guy check in. Tall, built, with a way fine face, and acting too tough to tumble.

He's a nutsh.e.l.l asking to crack.

Wonder if he's ever let a guy touch that pumped-up bod.