Outside Reading Project

Dear Journal,

What a day! Today was my last day of shock therapy, and I know I was skeptical at first but I have to say it really has worked. It wasn’t a pleasant process but I could guess that it wouldn’t be easy from the name alone. I am so glad May insisted that I do this; I will have to thank her later. It has brought back almost all of my memory, which I am extremely happy about. Unfortunately, though, having all of my memory means that I know about every thing that didn’t happen as well. Everything that was all in my mind and not reality. By that I mean Lyndley. Or Lyndsey. I don’t really know what to call her ever since May told me her real name, but I guess it doesn’t really matter what I call her since she was all in my head anyway.

I don’t know what to think about all that. I mean, I made up a human being! Well, I technically can’t say that I made her up because at one point in time she did exist. But she didn’t live to be over a day old. The rest of her life was purely in my mind. My whole life I believed that she was there with me and now I know that I was alone the whole time. It scares me to think that up until now, I was so out of it. I was basically a crazy person, but I felt saner than anyone I knew. Its funny how that works.

When I first figured out the whole Lyndley thing I was so confused. At first, I thought I was just completely insane. Then, I thought maybe it was because we were twins and the bond between twins is so strong that I just couldn’t let her die. However, I have done a lot of thinking and I know now that it was deeper than both of these things. Lyndley was there to protect me from my life, because I was too afraid to deal with it myself. Throughout Lyndley’s “life”, she always had it bad. Her father beat her and her mother, she broke up with the only man she ever loved, she was sent away to boarding school, her dad was a drunk, the list could go on forever. It sends chills down my spine to know that this all really happened to me. I put Lyndley there to protect me, so I could feel like it was all happening to someone else. So I wouldn’t have to feel the pain, only the sympathy.

The day Lyndley commit suicide, well, I don’t know what to think about that either. Obviously I know now that it was me up there on that cliff and it was me who jumped into the wind and fell to the water below. It gives me an uneasy feeling to know that I tried to kill myself, but I cant understand why I did it. I must have known, in the very back of my brain, that I was living a lie. That’s a hard thing to try to deal with. I am glad that I lived through that day, but at the time it hurt so bad to come back to life.

What hurts the most is that I miss Lyndley. She wasn’t really there, but for my entire life she was as real as ever to me. We shared all of our life experiences, and there’s no doubt she helped me realize who I really was inside. She was my best friend and my twin sister. And now that she is out of my head, it hurts my heart more than I could ever explain.

“I could have loved you more if you had been my own daughter.” What is that supposed to mean?! The moment May said that to me, my heart sank. She didn’t know it at the time, but her not being my mother was news to me. I keep replaying that line over and over in my head… I could have loved you more… didn’t she love me enough? Maybe what I thought was love was really pity. Maybe that’s why she let me stay with her. I really don’t know.

The worst part about May not being my mother is the fact that it means Auntie Emma is. Not that I don’t love Auntie Emma, because I do. It’s just that she is my Auntie Emma and will always be just an auntie in my mind. I know this is probably really hard on her too. To find out that your only daughter didn’t even think you were her mother has got to be hard to take. I do know Emma well, and right now she is probably doubting her parenting and telling herself that she was a bad mother. I, of course, blame myself for this and I feel awful that my mother feels this way about me. It will just take some time for me to get used to.

It’s hard to explain the feeling that everything you ever knew is not true. The feeling that everyone you ever loved is not who you really think they are. It’s too confusing to try to figure out. I will have to take time on this one. May is trying so hard to help me through it, but it’s hard for me to trust her. I know that sounds stupid because if I should be able to trust anyone right now it is May, but I cant help but think she has more secrets. I intend to find discover what these secrets are. I need to know more about my past so I can figure my life out. I can’t do it just yet though; I’m hoping that as time passes they will just come to me.

I would think that after going through what I’ve been through these past couple days, and pretty much my whole life if you think about it, I would be a mess. However, I like to think that I am taking everything pretty well. So much information coming at me so fast is sometimes heard to hear, but I am accepting everything I am learning about myself. Since I am basically starting my life over, I have decided that I am going to stay positive through it all. I think optimism is one of the major things I lacked before therapy, and I am trying my hardest to do exactly the opposite of what I used to do. Hopefully it will just get easier as time goes by. 

Through all of this, I have had so much support from everyone. I feel really blessed to have everyone on my side. However, I can’t stop thinking how good Eva would have been at explaining things to me and helping me piece my memories back together. She was always a big part of my life, no matter where I was living, and I know she knew me better than anyone. It’s hard not having her around, but I know she is happy for me now. I keep seeing her around the house or hearing her voice. It’s comforting to know she is watching over me.  If anyone ever knew anything about this whole Lyndley thing, I had to have been Eva. She was so intuitive, and I just felt like she had a close bond with Lyndley. That could just be my head again, or that could really mean something. I guess I will just have to wait for another sign from above to find out.

-Towner

Quarter 2, Post 10: The End

I am finally loving this book! The Lace Reader, by Brunonia Barry, is turning out to be so exciting and surprising. Angela has been found and Cal has proposed to her. This is great for Rafferty and his team because they think she is safe now, but in reality, she is in even more danger. This is because Cal’s followers are all after her, claiming that she is a witch and her baby is the devil. As if that isn’t bad enough, Towner is experiences strange dreams that feel more like reality to her. She has left Rafferty’s house with nothing but his dog and the boat and gone over to Eva’s. When she gets there she runs in to even more trouble with the mob of angry people. They even follow her to her house!

One of the aspects of this book that I have grown to enjoy so much is the plotline that has been created from the flashbacks. When certain characters remember a story from their past, a whole new mystery is presented. After piecing all of these past memories together, the story of Lyndley and Towner’s past has become a lot clearer…

 

When Lyndley and Towner were 16, Emma and Cal were getting into a lot of fights and Emma was getting badly beaten. The couple moved to California, and Lyndley stayed with May and Eva, switching off nights. She had a wild personality and was very independent, so when her mother wrote her saying that she wanted her to come to California, she wasn’t happy. She had just fallen in love with her longtime friend, Jack, and he had just proposed. The timing could not have been worse. However, Lyndley went to her mom because she thought that Cal would soon kill her out of anger. Years passed, and when she came back to Yellow Dog Island, she had changed. She was more distant and less like herself. Then, one day while Jack and Towner were sailing in to the island, they spotted Lyndley at the top of the cliff. They stared as she leaned over the edge and peacefully fell to her death.

 

I have enjoyed this book so much, especially since it has ended so differently than I ever expected. Everything I that I thought was important, I know see was just a mask over the real problems in the characters lives. I loved the ending to the plot, both in the present and in their memories, and I would definitely recommend it.

Quarter 2, Post 9: Towner's Memory

I am really beginning to enjoy the book The Lace Reader more and more! I feel like all of my unanswered questions are about to be resolved. There is so much going on right now that it is getting a little confusing, but I know that everything will all come together soon. Recently, Towner has gone on another date with Rafferty. It started all right, but just as their dates always go, as the night progressed things started to go wrong.  Rafferty started seeing spots when they exited the harbor on the boat and had to have Towner take over. Rafferty sat down and tried to relax, but his vision worsened until he couldn’t see at all. Not wanting to ruin the night, he continued to ask Towner questions to make it seem as if he were okay. When asking her about her boating days that Eva had told him so much about, she responded that she had never owned a boat…

“It stopped him. ‘Gaps’ was the way Eva had put it. Towner had gaps in her memory.” (page 187)

After reading this quote, I realized how oblivious Towner is to her memory loss. I used to feel bad for her when she wouldn’t remember something important, or remember some of her good memories. Now, however, I realize that she is not missing out on anything at all, because she doesn’t know she is missing out. In other words, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

Although it hasn’t come up yet, I am wondering if a missing piece to the puzzle of Angela’s disappearance is hidden in the back of Towner’s brain, inaccessible to her. If this is true, will Towner miraculously remember everything she has forgotten and save Angela? Will this missing piece of information cause Angela’s death? I cant wait to find out! 

Quarter 2, Post 8: Facts are the enemy of the truth

For my blog post today I have decided to talk about a quote that I have come across while reading the book The Lace Reader, by Brunonia Barry. I like this quote a lot and I also think it fits perfectly with what is going on in the book right now.

“ ‘Facts are the enemy of the truth,’  Eva quoted Don Quixote." (page 167)

As soon as I read this line, I immediately thought how stupid it sounded to say that facts are basically not true, because they are. However, as I continued to think about it, I realized that this is not what the line is saying at all. Rather, it is saying that facts sometimes get in the way of the truth or keep one from really seeing the truth. This is very true, because I can think of many times that people just stuck with what they see instead of what they feel to make a decision. This is, however, a very naive way to look at something because it is often the things that are hidden that matter the most. For example, right now in he book Rafferty is looking at all the facts of Emma’s case and trying to connect these facts to Angela. The problem is, there is nothing that is connecting them in any way that he can see in the files. The problem is, their relationship might not be something so concrete, but have to do with the lace readings, which is certainly not factual, but more fantasy. Even though they are not reliable, I fully believe that the lace reading will be the key to finding Angela, and that fact is holding Rafferty back from thinking of this himself. I am hoping that soon he will stop holding back and search deeper in to the case to discover this.

Quarter 2, Post 7: Rafferty's Flashback

I have been continuing to read over the break and my book, The Lace Reader, is continuing to get more interesting. I am on page 155 right now and I am really enjoying the way that the plot it forming. Right now, Rafferty is continuing to try to find out more information about Angela’s past. While looking through files and records, he comes across records of the Whitney family. Suddenly he has a flashback:

Emma Boyton and Cal Boyton were married at the time Cal started to beat her. Finally one day he hit her so hard that he broke her jaw. That night he disappeared. While Emma fought for her life Cal tried to escape on a stolen boat. When he was found several days later almost dead, Eva filed for a restraining order. Through the divorce Emma received all of Yellow Dog Island. Cal became very religious after claiming to have seen “ the face of God” and lead a group of Calvinists.

… His flashback went on and on, going into detail the lives of the Whitney’s during this difficult time in their life. I am curious as to why Rafferty knows so much about their lives and how he know so much about Emma, someone he had never even met before. I am beginning to think he has some type of connections or relationship with someone or had one in the past that we don’t know about yet. I was also very shocked about the things that he remembered and wonder if it all is true. Hopefully Rafferty will clarify some of there things later in the novel.

 

Quarter 2, Post 6: Angela

This week I have read four more chapters in The Lace Reader, by Brunonia Barry, and it is starting to get a lot more interesting. I don’t have any answers to my previously asked questions yet, but I am positive that they are soon to come. Towner and Rafferty have just gone looking for a missing girl named Angela. Angela is a teenager from town that has been known to go missing every once in a while. Eva usually finds her without a problem because the two were very close, but since Eva has recently died everyone sadly goes out to find her themselves. Little do they know it wont be as easy as they think…

Everyone has just begun their search for Angela, checking all the normal spots for her to hide. They even break into her house but it is dark and empty. This is where the plot starts to get interesting. I don’t know what will happen next but Rafferty seems to be getting very discouraged. He even broke a few windows out of pure frustration. When Towner and Rafferty first went out on this trip to look for Angela, I though it might be a chance for them to “redo” their date that had been cut short and get to know each other a little better. Now I think that they both will be too occupied with the search to pay any attention to each other. I don’t know where they plan to look for Angela next or what challenges they will encounter in the next few days, but I do know that I have reached the exciting part of the book!

Quarter 2, Post 5: Towner and Rafferty

I am continuing to read The Lace Reader, by Brunonia Barry. The plot has advanced more in the past few pages than it has in the entire first part of the novel, so I thought for my blog post today I would break down everything that is happening in section two (up to page 139).

Towner is still in Salem, but plans to leave shortly until a realtor approaches her and asks her if she is planning on selling Eva’s house. Towner hadn’t really considered it until then, but decides that selling the house might be what’s best for everyone, even though she personally doesn’t want to. She immediately goes home and starts to clear Eva’s things out. This so when she realizes just how much stuff Eva kept. There were boxes and boxes of this that looked like trash to Towner, but she knew that if it was packed it must have been important to Eva, so she treated it all with care. Towner even stumbled upon some pictures of herself when she was young. Seeing herself so happy and innocent just makes her resent the accident even more, and all she can think about is Lyndley, her late sister. It is hard for her to keep remembering the past, especially since she can't “find” all of her memories because of the accident. This frustrates her so she decides to take a walk, where she runs into Rafferty again. They begin talking, and suddenly he invites her to dinner. She agrees and they leave that night on the boat to eat on a “floating restaurant”. The date is awkward and they both are feeling weird being with each other. However, what makes it even weirder for Towner is that she can feel people staring at her and hear them think about her. Suddenly, a fight breaks out and Rafferty goes to help break it up. Towner is mortified when she realizes that the fight is about her. The couple immediately leaves the restaurant. Towner thinks the date could not have gone worse, but to her surprise Rafferty asks her to do it again sometime.

I do not know what Towner and Rafferty’s relationship is going to turn into, but I do know that it has changed for good. I am also interested to see what Towner decided to do about Eva’s house. I can imagine that the decision will be a very hard one to make, and I can't wait to see what happens!