The book Shug by Jenny Han is a mixture of love and friendship. Annemarie Wilcox, or Shug as her family calls her, thinks that there is nothing worse than being 12. More than ever, if you are flat chested, have too many freckles, are too tall/skinny, and if your best guy-friend does not think you are a “girl.” This story instigates by how Annemarie Wilcox spent her summer before staring junior high (in a small town called Clementon, Georgia), in addition to how her school life is going on, and ends by how she found her real true love…
Annemarie’s best friend-Elaine is at New York, her sister Celia is already thinking about going to college, her mom is addicted to wine/beer (practically drunk), and her dad doesn’t come home after finishing his 2-3 week long trips from work. The only person she relies is on Mark-her best guy friend. They go walking together; they ride bikes together, tell jokes, and do many toher fun activities. Soon Annemarie starts developing a major crush on him. One day, she goes over to Mark’s house to be “noticed by him.” She wears her first dress to look appealing. As she goes over, Mark’s mom bakes a cake, and Annemarie serves it. In the living room, Mark was with all his friends so she was the only girl there. There was Kyle Montgomery (the guy who she had a crush on in 5th grade), Jack Connell (her deepest enemy), and a bunch of other boys. When she was setting the cake on the table, nobody seemed to notice her-especially Mark and that she was wearing a dress! Mark had his undivided attention on the video game as well as the other guys, so Kyle was the only one who bothered to talk to her there. Soon it was getting late, so she headed home. After a couple of days, Mark came over to Annemarie’s house. They were going over some of their jokes, when Celia disturbed them. She sat down for a couple of minutes listening to them. During the time, she was there, Mark’s mouth was covered with drool as he kept on staring at her. Mark has had a crush on Celia ever since he was in 2nd grade, and she was in 8th grade, and he still does.
It was the first day of 7th grade, and Annemarie was very nervous. She had no classes with Mark, she was not much liked by most teachers, and she only had one class with Elaine.
After half of the school year, she decided to earn extra credit by tutoring a classmate. She was not so happy when she looked at her tutor sheet, she found out that her student was Jack Connell. She asked everyone if they wanted to trade partners, but they all turned her down. Therefore, she was stuck with him for the rest of the school year. The tutoring went well; they argued, but did work at the same time. During this period, she lost contact with her best friend, Elaine. She has become so popular, and hangs out with other girls, Annemarie is afraid of loosing her.
Soon the 7th-grade-end-of-the-year-dance was coming. Everyone was excited, and many rumors were going on. Annemarie was eager to ask Mark to the dance, she hoped that he would ask her first. As days passed by, there were rumors saying that the most popular boy asked Elaine to the dance. Annemarie was happy for her, and now she felt confident to ask Mark. The day before she was going to ask Mark to the dance, she heard some shocking, and dreadful news. Mark had already asked Hadley. Annemarie changed her mind about going to the dance; her heart was broken. At home, she wanted to do nothing, but lay in her bed. Why did Mark pick Hadley? I have known him my whole life, and suddenly she steals him from me? Why her? She thought. The day before the dance, Annemarie was very depressed. She did want to go, but part of her felt that there was no point going. Her sister convinced her to go, and she had leaned Annemarie their mom’s old dress, Celia put makeup on, she curled her hair. She looked stunning.
At the dance, every boy had caught her eye, including Mark. Surprisingly, Jack was also there. With confidence, Annemarie went up to Mark, and asked for a dance. Unexpectedly, he said yes. They had the spotlight, and they both danced with their heart. Bradley cut the dance. Annemarie did not mind, because she was waiting for this her whole life. She felt joyful, and went over to her friends. Soon it was almost time to go, so the DJ played one last song. She went to the table to grab her jacket. There Elaine’s boyfriend was making fun of her and Mark. He kept on saying “you guys looked cute together when you danced. You should become boyfriend and girlfriend!” He also made “kissing” noises. This irritated Mark, so with all his guts, he said “You know what, Annemarie is just my friend. I do not even like her. She is not even a girl!” Annemarie heard it all, and Jack had seen it. She went up to Mark, and tried to say something, but whenever she opened her mouth, no words came. Only tears dripped from her eyes. She left him, and ran way to the car park. He tried to stop her and kept shouting “Annemarie wait! You know I did not mean it! Come back!” Although she heard him, she did not stop running. She saw her mom in the car, and hopped in. When they had reached their house, she went straight up to her room, slammed the door shut, and cried. She cried for hours and hours thinking what a terrible nightmare had happened. She was so upset that she did not want to see Mark’s face at all. She had told her mom what happened and decided not to go to school for the following day.
During the next evening, Mark came over to give her homework that she missed. She had noticed he had many bruises on his face, but she did not say anything. Before he left, he said sorry for what happened. During this minute, Annemarie burst into tears again and said, “Why did you have to say that? In front of everyone? You could have said it to me, instead of humiliating me…” Mark just stared that the ground and apologized again, and left.
During dinner, Jack had come to visit Annemarie. He told her that after she had left the dance, he got into a fight with Mark. He had got mad at Mark for saying that Annemarie was not a girl. This was the fourth fight during the school year, so now Jack has to go live with his dad. Annemarie was upset, but pleased to hear that Jack defended her. After the conversation, Jack pulled out two cherry popsicles. They both looked into the sky and enjoyed their popsicle. Jack had said sorry for all the trouble he had caused her in the past, and she forgave him. Subsequently, something unusual happens. Jack and Annemarie looked into each other’s eyes…and kissed. Jack smiled and left, along with saying bye to her. That was Annemarie’s first kiss, and she felt content about it.
The main characters throughout this love and friendship story are:
Annemarie, or Shug as her family calls her, is the most important character. She is easily able to get hurt by words, and very sensitive. She has a crush on Mark. Her best friend is Elaine. She is a blonde-haired person (mixed with brown), and she has pale skin with freckles. She is very tall, and flat chested. Her mom is an alcoholic, and her dad travels most of the time from work. He and Annemarie’s mom usually have tempestuous relationship. Her sister, Celia is 16 years old, and “the perfect one” in the family. Mark is her best guy friend. Speaking of Mark, our second main character, starting junior high, he becomes popular and makes new friends. He thinks of Annemarie as a friend, but not that girlish like the rest of the other girls. He asked one of the most popular girls to the dance, leaving Annemarie heart-broken. Elaine is Annemarie’s best friend. She is from New York, and is Korean-American. She is very in style at school. She gives Annemarie advice, and support. Jack was Annemarie’s deepest enemy, until the end. In second grade, they had classes together and from that day on, he would embarrass her in many ways. One time he pushed her so hard to the ground, she got a scar. Until now, she has loathed him for his immature behavior. However, deep down, Jack has liked Annemarie ever since second grade. Jack is about 1 inch taller than Annemarie is, and he had dark brown hair (almost black, but not quite).
Theme…
I suppose that the theme of this book is “don’t try hard to fit in.” I selected this theme, because the main character, Annemarie, tries to fit in with her guy-best-friend Mark, popularity, and her family. As she is growing up, Annemarie gets boy advice. She tries to be noticed by Mark; for instance, she is very concerned about her daily clothes, appearance, and her speaking towards him. Since Annemarie is not very popular girl at school, she tries to become one. She hangs out with the popular girls, goes to their birthday parties, sleepovers, etc. She feels that the popular girls have snatched her friend Elaine away from her, and now she is trying to get her back. She is worried that she might loose her. Annemarie’s mom and Celia are role models for her. Her mom had good education, went to a wealthy collage, and was good-looking even though she was alcoholic. Her sister is perfect in everyway-from boys to education. My point is, you should not try hard to fit in just to impress someone. Stay where you belong, and maybe you will blend in with others. This theme does not relate to me in any way, because I have never tried to fit in like how Annemarie did.
I really enjoyed reading this heart-warming book. I think that this story dealt with real life, in terms of popularity, crushes, and fitting it. I would recommend this book to any middle school girls interested in love and friendship. I give this book two-thumbs up! I like how Jenny Han writes novels designed for kids ages 10-14, about daily life.
3 comments:
this was an awesome report
this wa awesome :D
Bit long
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