Penelope Sparrow is a dancer. For reasons she cant seem to remember, she has jumped off of a 14-story building and woken up in the hospital alive.
Penelope Sparrows story tries to be a lot of things. It tries to be a story of finding oneself using the metaphor of modern dance. It tries to be a treatise on the inner-mind of a woman with an eating disorder. It tries to be an interconnected tale of the different ways love comes to us in our lives. It tries to be far too many things at once and because of its over-zealousness all of these threads end up flat and lifeless.
Penelope Sparrow is one of the most unlikeable characters Ive encountered recently, and in my opinion, she does not redeem herself at the end like I hoped she would. She is so incredibly self-centered, self-involved, and selfish that by the time she finally realizes that through her new best friend she as experienced a kind of love Id never known before it seems forced and ultimately untrue. We are supposed to believe that Penny has opened herself to love but all I saw was someone that made her friends illness more about herself and her own pain than anything else.
Perhaps most uncomfortable in the story is Penelope Sparrows relationship with her mother. The reader is supposed to believe, based on Pennys POV, that her mother has been a demanding task-master that has cared about nothing other than living her own dream of dance through her daughter. What we actually see, however, is a loving, supportive mother that has given up her life and dreams FOR her daughter and in return has lived through 28 years of tantrums. Penny spends the entire book commenting on her mothers weight - in the first half being openly disgusted with how fat her mother is, and in the second half constantly commenting on her mothers new slimmer figure as if that has somehow made her a better human being.
I could sit and pick apart ever other relationship Penny has in the book and how she treats everyone in her life like utter trash, but I think my point is made. I do want to mention how, after working 3 days in a candy factory, she complains how this job is killing me - it was such a clear illustration of how spoiled and privileged her life is (and clearly always will be) that I had to laugh out loud.
Everyone else in Penelope Sparrows story was wonderful, and each one deserved a better friend, and a better daughter.
Penelope Sparrows story tries to be a lot of things. It tries to be a story of finding oneself using the metaphor of modern dance. It tries to be a treatise on the inner-mind of a woman with an eating disorder. It tries to be an interconnected tale of the different ways love comes to us in our lives. It tries to be far too many things at once and because of its over-zealousness all of these threads end up flat and lifeless.
Penelope Sparrow is one of the most unlikeable characters Ive encountered recently, and in my opinion, she does not redeem herself at the end like I hoped she would. She is so incredibly self-centered, self-involved, and selfish that by the time she finally realizes that through her new best friend she as experienced a kind of love Id never known before it seems forced and ultimately untrue. We are supposed to believe that Penny has opened herself to love but all I saw was someone that made her friends illness more about herself and her own pain than anything else.
Perhaps most uncomfortable in the story is Penelope Sparrows relationship with her mother. The reader is supposed to believe, based on Pennys POV, that her mother has been a demanding task-master that has cared about nothing other than living her own dream of dance through her daughter. What we actually see, however, is a loving, supportive mother that has given up her life and dreams FOR her daughter and in return has lived through 28 years of tantrums. Penny spends the entire book commenting on her mothers weight - in the first half being openly disgusted with how fat her mother is, and in the second half constantly commenting on her mothers new slimmer figure as if that has somehow made her a better human being.
I could sit and pick apart ever other relationship Penny has in the book and how she treats everyone in her life like utter trash, but I think my point is made. I do want to mention how, after working 3 days in a candy factory, she complains how this job is killing me - it was such a clear illustration of how spoiled and privileged her life is (and clearly always will be) that I had to laugh out loud.
Everyone else in Penelope Sparrows story was wonderful, and each one deserved a better friend, and a better daughter.
