Reading Response #2 Perfect

     This book is about four kids who are striving for perfection, but each of them have their own definition of the word. Whether it be Cara who is striving to overcome her parents high expectations without ending up like her twin Conner who attempted to commit suicide, Kendra who strives to have the perfect body by starving herself and exercise, Sean who wants to be the best at baseball and uses steroids to do so, or Andre who loves to dance but who's parents would never approve.

     To the right is a picture of a girl with tape over her mouth saying, "I won't eat". This represents Kendra who starves herself in order to fit the image of perfection. She wants to be a model so perfection is all she can think about. This means she'll do anything to get the perfect body including starving herself and surgery.

 

     Teenagers all want to meet these impossible standards and in this book they find out sometimes what makes you perfect is what's on the inside. The very first page of the book states this very well it says,

     "How do you define a word without concrete meaning? To each his own, the saying goes, so why push to attain an ideal state of being no two people will agree is where you want to be? Faultless. Finished. Incomparable. People can never be these, and anyway, when did creating a flawless façade become a more vital goal then learning to love the person who lives inside your skin? The outside belongs to others. Only you should decide for you-what is perfect."

     Ellen Hopkins states that loving yourself is so much more important than what anyone else thinks. So don't strive for perfection. You should learn to love the person you are no matter what others think.