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| As you may know, we’re going through a phase called adolescence, which is the physical and psychological change from being a child to turning into an adult. In this particular period of time, our minds start thinking differently, which cause us to make decisions that we’ve never thought of before. These decisions can lead to many issues. The novels ‘Guitar Highway Rose’ by Brigid Lowry and the ‘After’ series by Anna Todd deal with issues associated with adolescence. Some of the issues mentioned in these novels are rebellion, identity and popularity. |
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| ‘Guitar Highway Rose’ by Brigid Lowry shows a case of rebellion. Rosie Moon decides to have fun and goes to a party with her best friend, Pip. At that party, she gets into illegal matters such as underage drinking and smoking marijuana. Rosie also lies to her mother about studying at Pip’s house so that she can go and hang out with Asher, who has an issue with running away from home. |
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| In the ‘After’ series, an intelligent eighteen-year old girl called Tessa Young goes through rebellion. She gets involved in similar issues such as going to parties constantly, skipping classes, and drinking on a regular basis. Someone once told me, “Strict parents raise rebellious children”. Caregivers must give their child a little bit of leniency to explore the world to establish confidence and make mistakes so that they can learn from them. |
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| The novel ‘Guitar Highway Rose’ by Brigid Lowry deals with identity. In this novel, Rosie Moon decides to go against her mother’s expectations and show her true self. After her mother’s disapproval, she decides that she wants to get a nose ring. As a teenager, she wants to start understanding who she truly is inside, and that involves changing her appearance. As a girl with strict parents, it took me a while to identify myself. I didn’t want to be the girl who spends hours trying to make her hair and makeup look decent, or the girl who wear colourful clothes and socialises every day. I wanted to be a girl who can throw her hair up in a messy bun and watch movies all day. I wanted to be a girl who can wear band shirts and ripped skinny jeans with Chuck Taylors and a little bit of eyeliner. Obviously I wasn’t able to convince my parents to let me dye my hair with crazy colours like pink and green, but I was able to colour the tips of my hair with a lighter colour. It took me some time to figure out who I truly want to be, and it took my parents a while to accept me for who I am, but it worked. Rose Moon’s mother had a strong dislike for nose rings, but she didn’t understand that Rose wanted that piercing to identify who she truly is. “Maybe I should take the ring out? Nah, wouldn’t give her the satisfaction”. In this quote, Rosie hesitates to take the nose piercing out to satisfy her mother’s expectations, but she decides against it, as it is what she believes makes her happy. |
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| The ‘After’ series by Anna Todd dealt with a variety of adolescence issues, including publicity. Tessa Young is an eighteen-year old girl who had excellent grades, a perfect life and a good boyfriend. Then, she moves to a different college and gets caught up with the wrong people, including Hardin, who is a popular British student with tattoos and a lip piercing. In this novel, Tessa starts falling for Hardin, despite her relationship with Noah, her boyfriend who has been there for her since they were kids. But there was a slight issue. Hardin was known as the ‘bad boy who spends his time partying all day’, and he didn’t want his popularity to be affected by a nerdy, yet beautiful girl like Tessa. As the year went on, the two of them have been getting close, but no too close as Hardin didn’t want his reputation to go down the drain. |
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| It goes without saying that adolescence is a big step from childhood and is a learning period where we get to experience many different issues in our lives such as identity, popularity and rebellion. Overall, ‘Guitar Highway Rose’ and the ‘After’ series have taught me that satisfying yourself is more important than satisfying other people’s needs. |
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