Feb 29 2008
in the heart of the valley of love
“You only get five minutes a day to feel sorry for yourself.” (pg. 135) Almost finish reading the book, but I felt like there is no surprise, no spotlights and no new ideas in this book. Each Chapter just told stories happened to the families, friends and lovers. Anyway, just like the first sentence I mentioned in this paragraph, we still could find something like that from the book that Cynthia Kadohata wanted to show us.
The whole story was set in the future during the 2050s in Los Angels. Francie was a nineteen years old girl whose parents died very earlier when she was still a kid. She lived with her auntie Annie, and made some deliveries for her aunt. After having a very serious traffic accident, she moved out, and found a job for a living by herself. We could see Francie’s life was tough, and also, she was a tough girl. Her mother was a Japanese and her father was a Chinese. She was a special girl not because her parents but her attitude to her life. She never hesitated helping people. Because of her experience, she could always get in touch with feeling of her friends when they had problems. We could see how she treated her aunt, Annie, her friend, Jewel and her boy friend, Mark.
During 2050s, the city was filled with violence, life was degenerate, and the people were hopeless and used to it. The color of the city was gray. I thought the author set up the whole novel with this color just like she mentioned the weather of Los Angel couple times. She might think that would be the tendency that the world would go to with so far. Not just violence, we also have seen that in this book, the relationship among the people was kind of weird. Some of them became numb and cold blood; on the other hand, in the hopeless world, the author tried to present the character of the novel, Francie, as the person who still tried to change her life, and lived with hope. “They held expectations of the world, whereas what we had was hope. That never changed for me.” She never lost hope. Even though her aunt’s boy friend, Rohn, had been arrested for a year she still thought Rohn would come back. It also showed she was rigid. As when she was ready for a tattoo, Carl told her “I am not going to lie and say it doesn’t hurt, but if you want a tattoo, it’s worth it!” I am pretty sure it was also what Francie thought. Not just the tattoo, but also ideal to her life. It was telling you if you think it’s worth it, then do not lose your hope, and do not give up.
When some people are ready to go to sleep in the evening they will think the world is too hard for them, but the next morning when they get up they still need to do whatever they have to do. So people do not really have choices. If not, they only have two options: live or die. If you choose to live, be like Francie to be rigid and hopeful.
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You’re right. Throughout the novel Francie is always making references about her friends and families about the past, but i think thats what Kadohata intended for Francie character to do a lot. You have a nine-teen year old girl living in the chaotic future and is always looking at the past to make her feel better. Rather than changing the future you have someone who doesn’t let go of the past. I think thats what the author is maybe saying about our youth today. We are so concerned with things that dont really matter while so much is happening infront of us.