Prompt - Did you enjoy what you read?
I actually read Debbie Harry Sings In French on a sort of whim, really. Every time I went to the library, I would read the summary of this book. It always sort of caught my eye, but I never really remembered it. Basically, Debbie Harry Sings In French is about a teenage boy who has the look of someone goth, but he doesn't really find his joy in listening to emo music. His friends find their happiness in drugs, drinking, and partying. He doesn't. Problems with his mother and father lead him to drink. It doesn't make him happy, but it helps him calm and cope. Like an entertainment, kind of. Anyway, after a particular amount of drinking at a party with friends, he asks for an aspirin from a friend to ease his killer headache. The thing is, the friend gave him two pills telling him it was a pair of aspirins and it wasn't. They were drugs, and he overdosed thinking he was just taking some normal aspirin. This is where the story kinda really starts. Johnny, our main teenage guy, is sent to rehab once he wakes up in the hospital from his surprise overdose. Once his drinking problem is found out, his mother ships him off to the rehab to clear him up. In rehab, he hears Debbie Harry sing in French. When he returns home from rehab, he's changed because of the influence Debbie had on him. He changes his overall look and changes his habits. Soon after, though, Johnny's mother ships him off to North Carolina to live with his uncle. Johnny is pretty upset, as he feels he's just being tossed away by his mother. Most of the story takes place here in North Carolina with uncle Sam (hah. Great.) and little cousin Bug. And. Maria. Johnny makes a connection with Maria at the high school in NC he now goes to. In the new setting of NC, Johnny's story goes through bullying, fitting in, love, problems in general, and Johnny really trying to decide what and who he is. Even though it sounds cheesy, it was really interesting to read about.
Now that you've got a brief idea about the book, I can go with the prompt. There was nothing I didn't enjoy about this book. For me, I thought the story itself was just really interesting and not really plain or really fake sounding. It sounded like it could have been a real story. In most books, there's usually just one problem the main character has to solve or just one slightly more important event that happens in the book. In this book, Johnny didn't have just one problem or important happening in the time the book took place in. As the book goes on, he encounters new problems and throughout the book, he solves them. I thought this made the book more interesting, especially because of what the problems he encountered were about. They weren't problems based around saving the world, they were more realistic problems people actually go through. I can't speak for anyone else, but I think that made the story better as well (which may be just because I'm not too big on fantasy).
Another thing I enjoyed about this book was the characters. The characters were all really interesting and they all played a fairly important role in the book-- even the meanest ones. The characters didn't sound like hollow people copy and pasted into this book with no meaning. They were all...something. It's hard to put into words. I think the best way to put it is that they were pretty realistic, in my opinion. They were all fairly different from each other, so it made it interesting to see the impact (good or bad) that they each had on Johnny. Also, because of the variety of characters, I was actually able to connect with one of them. I found that he had a similar problem to me, so it was something to see how he solved it.
Even though it sounds really cheesy, I also liked how the book had a message. Not some weird cheesy message, but an actual good message. The message wasn't something clearly stated, but rather something you have to pick up on (and it becomes pretty obvious near the end of the book). The message was something like 'it's OK to do what you want and be who you want, even if people don't like it'. Along with that, there was the message to find what makes you happy. For Johnny, Debbie Harry made him really happy, and so did his girlfriend. The book showed that doing and being what you want is OK because of who Johnny decided he wanted to be in the end. He decided that he was going to work something out with his mom and be with his girlfriend and accept that he was a transvestite, even if no one else liked it. It made him happy.
Overall, I really really enjoyed this book and I recommend it to anyone!
Another thing I enjoyed about this book was the characters. The characters were all really interesting and they all played a fairly important role in the book-- even the meanest ones. The characters didn't sound like hollow people copy and pasted into this book with no meaning. They were all...something. It's hard to put into words. I think the best way to put it is that they were pretty realistic, in my opinion. They were all fairly different from each other, so it made it interesting to see the impact (good or bad) that they each had on Johnny. Also, because of the variety of characters, I was actually able to connect with one of them. I found that he had a similar problem to me, so it was something to see how he solved it.
Even though it sounds really cheesy, I also liked how the book had a message. Not some weird cheesy message, but an actual good message. The message wasn't something clearly stated, but rather something you have to pick up on (and it becomes pretty obvious near the end of the book). The message was something like 'it's OK to do what you want and be who you want, even if people don't like it'. Along with that, there was the message to find what makes you happy. For Johnny, Debbie Harry made him really happy, and so did his girlfriend. The book showed that doing and being what you want is OK because of who Johnny decided he wanted to be in the end. He decided that he was going to work something out with his mom and be with his girlfriend and accept that he was a transvestite, even if no one else liked it. It made him happy.
Overall, I really really enjoyed this book and I recommend it to anyone!
Debbie Harry is the singer
for the band Blondie.
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