Reading Response

In the book “Tilt by Ellen Hopkins, there are many characters with each chapter as their point of view. In the book each character are somehow related to each other, whether it is cousins or best friends, but they all deal with their individual problems.  One character that really impressed was Shane because of the way he dealt with his problems.

Shane is a young boy who has trouble with his family not accepting him, and to add to that his sister is unable to eat and talk, and is expected to not live long. Shane is gay and has a boyfriend but even that is not good enough. In the book Shane says that he wished his sister would die, but when she did he was upset and tried to kill himself. I think that he meant that she would die so that she won’t have to live with the pain. I also think so because while driving with two of his friends’ one of makes fun of his sister, and stood up for her by fighting with his friend. That was not a good idea but the author really showed how much he cared for his sister, by including that part. Shane problems gets worse when his sister dies, he starts to drink and smoke more than usual. But suddenly things start to get better, Shane’s father decides to finally accept him and his boyfriend and spend more time with his family.  So why does Shane try to kill himself? He said it’s because he feels left out and his mom pays him no attention. I agree and also disagree with Shane. I agree that now that his sister has died, that his mom should have paid more attention to him, but I disagree with him because he should understand that his mom is grieving and that killing himself won’t help her get any better.