Thoughts after finishing LTNLEYN

At the end of this book, I was surprised and angry. When Clarissa had first got to her mothers cabin, I was excited for her because her quest for her mother was coming to an end. She was excited about finally finding her mother, which got me excited. However, when Clarissa told her mother that she was her daughter I got so angry when her mother replied with, "I don't have anything to say to you. If I had, I could have written you a letter." If I were Clarissa, I would want to slap her. After leaving your daughter and not giving an explanation and then seeing her for the first time, you think she would give her a hug or at least try to be friendly. I did not understand Olivia when she said, "That was not my life. I had every reason to seek something else." Clarissa was her life, she gave birth to her, so that statement does not make sense. I can understand that she wanted to escape the rape and did not want to have to face it every day, but Clarissa is a part of her past, and even if it is a past that she does not want to revisit, it is still her past. However, Clarissa proves that she can get beyond her past and live in the future. She Remarries and raises the baby in a new world, and even though the child has a mother who was born out of rape, she can still lead a normal life.

In terms of Clarissa and Olivia being alike, I would say they are alike in some ways. After things did not go the way she expected with her mother, she chose not to go back to New York for Pankaj because she did not want to be reminded she was born because of rape and her birth father was a mad man. She is escaping her past, just like her mother did. She said that she can understand why her mother left but she will never forgive her. I think that Clarissa and Olivia are more alike that Clarissa thinks. Even when she arrived at her mothers house she made a comment about her mother probably trying to escape from her, which shows that her view of her mother has not changed. I was surprised that Clarissa wanted to follow in her mothers footsteps in terms of leaving the man they love, and they both did so for the same reasons. Clarissa seems to be happy in the new life she created for herself, just like Olivia is. 

Overall, I really liked this book. I think that it is so much more enjoyable to read when you are reading something that you like reading. This book was a quick read and was hard to put it down. The plot had a lot of twists and turns that I did not expect, which made it kind of like mystery book. My predictions of the book were not correct, but that is okay.

For my paper, I am not sure exactly what I want to write about, but I do want to do the first question, which is a close reading. I enjoyed doing that in class and I like finding symbolism in objects and ideas. I think that I will do some research and see what I come up with to help guide me. I am curious if the Sami people are as complex as Clarissa and Olivia are, and I am not sure if I would be able to find that through research or not.