Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson - Essay Example

Twisted- Laurie Halse Anderson The book I have recently read and have chosen to write a review onis Laurie Halse Anderson’s award winning young adult realistic fiction book “Twisted”. I chose this book for a number of reasons but the foremost is that I absolutely loved it. This book describes the importance of family and how to take charge of your own life. It deals with the problems of an average teenager and shows how to best to take care of them. It is one of the unforgettable books that leave a permanent impression on your mind. The protagonist Tyler Miller has a hard life. His father works all day long and he is not the kind, understanding father his children would have wanted him to be. He has to face a lot of pressure at work and that is what makes him take his frustration out on his family by being intimidating and controlling. Tyler’s mother who is a pet photographer, cake baker, and a genuinely nice woman makes every attempt she can to keep her family together but her attempts fail and with every day that goes by she becomes more depressed. Hannah is Tyler’s younger sister who is just starting high school and whom he completely adores. His only friend in school is Calvin “Yoda” Hodge who later becomes the love interest of Tyler’s younger sister. He is in every way an average guy with an average dysfunctional family. Tyler is sick and tired of being a nobody in his high school and at the end of his junior year he decides to change that by doing the “Foul Deed” which involved doing graffiti on school walls. But things don’t go exactly as he planned and he gets caught. He is ordered to do community service all summer by helping janitors in his school. He also has to pay for the damages so he has to sell his car and take a landscaping job for the summer. After this incident Tyler develops a reputation as the trouble maker and due to his hard job he also develops the physique which in turn makes him more attractive to his secret crush, the sister of his main tormentor who also happens to be the daughter of his father’s boss, Bethany Milbury. Things start moving too fast for Tyler to comprehend. One moment he is thinking his life is too good to be true when Bethany starts taking notice of him and the next minute something so horrible happens it completely shakes his life up. Initially he is happy that he is invited to enjoy along with the popular crowd of the school but after the party where Tyler’s love interest Beth, her brother Chip and his friends get drunk and Tyler is left driving them home, he is accused of doing some unspeakable stuff to Beth. Being rich, Beth’s family is easily able to take a lot of steps to punish Tyler for the crime he has not even committed. He is not only tormented by his peers at school but he is also distressed when his father treats him like a criminal. This is a great book for several reasons. Firstly Laurie Halse Anderson did an exceptional job portraying the average youth. Tyler’s narration is heartbreaking, honest and funny. What makes Tyler such a remarkable character is that he is by no means perfect. He has been an outcast nerd his whole school life and he lacks the courage to stand up against his tyrant of a father. He also doesn’t have the determination required to be able to take charge of his life and change things for the better. Tyler loves his mother and sister and he is enraged when he sees his father pushing them around but he doesn’t take any action against it. Tyler’s father is demanding and he forces Tyler to take all the advanced classes in school. Tyler knows that he can’t do well in the advanced class and even though he faces continuous trouble with his studies, never once can he muster the courage to make things straight with his father. His reason for not doing so is that he thinks talking with his father would do no good so he does not even give it a try. When he faces all the trouble at school he starts planning ways to escape his problems instead of facing them. And he chooses suicide as the best way to diminish the pain without having to do anything. Tyler has always had violent fantasies. His one favorite pastime is to envision his death. This goes to show that how the children from dysfunctional families can suffer from psychological issues. Not only that but when he is angry at his father he tries to calm himself down by having violent thoughts about his father. What drives the readers to keep reading till the end is the question: what will Tyler do now? Would he give in to his desire to take the easy way out by finishing himself or would he finally do something to make things better for his family and himself? That’s where Laurie Halse Anderson outdid herself. When all hope seemed lost, Tyler thought of all the reasons he has to keep on living. His love for his sister and mother are the first on the list. He realizes how much his mother and sister depend on him. Just when he is about to pull the trigger of the gun he pulls the barrel away. His best friend Yoda shows him the way home and with every passing moment Tyler is disgusted with himself for being selfish and actually thinking that he can take his life and leave behind the two women who love him and depend on him to fend for them. He left home thinking he would never return but he comes back a changed man. He takes all his anger out on his father and for once his father has to listen to him. The things change for the better after that. Bethany’s real culprit is caught and everyone realizes Tyler was innocent. He drops out of the advanced classes and takes regular classes and his scores automatically improve. His father no longer tries to be a controlling tyrant after Tyler’s argument with him. The author describes the growing journey of Tyler. She tackles a very scandalous subject: what it means to be a man today. Readers would be captured by the realistic description of life of an average teenager. This book is recommended especially for high school students because there is a lot to be learned from Tyler’s story. The book has a bit of a slow start but it never lets the attention of the reader to waver even for a second. You would be unable to put the book down until you have read the end and have found out what Tyler made out of his life. The book’s title matched the story very well because there is no way of knowing what would happen next in this remarkably told story. “Twisted “ is an captivating story and what made it different from other average hero’s journey stories is that there were no mentors for Tyler and whatever decisions he made, he did without anyone’s help. This book definitely has the potential to change a reader’s thoughts on life and make them grateful for what they have. “Twisted” is amongst the best books I have read in a long time. It very beautifully portrays despair and dysfunction through the eyes of a teenager. And it no doubt deserves all the awards it has been bestowed with and more. Read More