Esther is relatable

I was reading through some of the blog posts, and it kind of inspired me to talk about something that I’d picked up on about Esther as a character. My idea is pretty basic, but I wanted to develop it further.

There are aspects of Esther’s personality and circumstances that I find to be pretty relatable. One of the reasons why I’m enjoying this book a lot is because I feel like I understand Esther. Our reactions to certain situations are similar, and although I’m not always going through everything she is, I feel like I get where she’s coming from.

The first reason why I feel I can connect to Esther is because of her fear of deciding what to do in life. The conversation she had with Jay Cee kind of mirrors how I feel about choosing a major for college. “What I always thought I had in mind was getting some big scholarship to graduate school or a grant to study all over Europe, and then I thought I might be a professor and write books of poems and be an editor… ‘I don’t really know,” I heard myself say. I felt a deep shock, hearing myself say that, because the minute I said it, I knew it was true.” A lot of adults lately have been asking me what I might want to go into, and when I was little, there were so many things that I had in mind. I wanted to be a linguist, a software developer, a doctor, or an engineer. Now I’m not so sure. I’m not against any of these per se, but now there are so many factors involved. Do I see myself doing this? How many years of school will I need to have done? What’s the average annual income of said profession?  

A second smaller aspect that I found relatable between us is our mutual need to excel academically. "I was taking one of those honors programs that teach you to think independently...Well, I studied those formulas, I went to class and watched balls roll down slides and listened to bells ring and by the end of the semester I had a straight A." Esther mentions that she is a hard worker and gets perfect grades and earns scholarships. We both a similar motivation in life when it comes to school. I found a parallel in my life through the fact that I’ve always pushed myself to be the best I could be in every academic scenario I was in. I feel like I understand her a bit more because we both started out as teacher’s pets and being goody-two-shoes.

Overall, this was just a small rant of how I see myself mirrored a bit in Esther, as we see her in the first half of the novel. She and I have similar motivations and issues in life. I also don't think this is something particular to just me, but I think others can connect with it as well.