Coming of age Part I

AJ 5-13:
AJ and Ruthie get to know each other. He hurts Ruthie in chemistry class and then he has to take her home.
AJ is a very lazy person. He is a football star so he will be graduating without doing sth. for his grades.
Ruthie is a very smart girl. And thats why Aj feels uncomfortable and stupid in front of her.


Erika 14-16:
Erika is hysteric, vainly and jealous. She doesn't like white or black people.
I think she is a superficial stupid girl. She meets her friends an AJ. She wants to know more about Ruthie because she thinks her boyfriend AJ gets to close to her.


Ruthie 17-23:
Ruthie is very ambicious (not like AJ). She changed school because she didn't feel good in a school where she was one of 6 black kids. Now at Centennial High School she is more isolated than before. Her friends are still white. She worries about her black identity. She speaks very smart not like other black people. She is black but doesn't behaves like one. Blacks don't like her(they think she is a snob). She has white friends but she isn't a white girl.
Erika and her friends are well-known: light skinned black girls who think they are sth. better. They often are involved in fights.
Ruthie doesn't care about Erike (but Erika cares about Ruthie).
Every student at her High School knows about the accident and that Erika is very jealous. Ruthie seems to be cool and doesn't worry about Erika. Erika just behaves ridiculous like a little girl.



Erika 24-28:
Erika thinks to be black is a crime. She often is involved in fights with black girls and thinks that's cool. I think she is silly.
The only topic of her friends is Ruthie and AJ. Erika can't stand hearing about that so she goes home thinking about AJ. I don't know if she really lovbes him or just because he is cool and good-looking.

Erika doesn't get along with her parents but she is living with her mum who seems to be racial. She doesn't like black men because of Erika's dad and she is shamed about having a half breed as a daughter (Erika). Erika hates white people because of her mother.

Now I feel sry for Erika because of her mum. I can understand why she is racial too. (Isn't AJ black????)


Everything in the book is about the colour of the skin. AJ and Erika try to excuse having black or white friends like it would be a crime staying together with people who has another colour of the skin.


AJ 29-37:
Erika gets on his nerves with her jeaolous behaviour. Ruthie seems to be a big problem in their relationship.

AJ lives in a bad neighbourhood but in fact he is a really nice guy. He loves his little brother and tries to protect him of the bad influence in his sorrounding field.His mother died and his dad doesn't care that much about them.

At night he and his friends are at a party. Erika flirts with a guy they hate and kisses him. That's why AJ is pissed off and so he chooses a white girl for kissing.


Ruthie 38-41:
3 weeks since her accident
Ruthie thinks a lot. She thinks she is different than the pupils at High School. She is black but she doesn't want to associate with black people. She thinks that's wrong. I think she is confused and thinks that's wrong because the others think it's wrong.
I think she is "real" and everyone else tries to be a person the others expected.
The others see she is black and they think she is a part of the black community (problems with drugs gangs and in family), the prejudices are like a stigma she wears. She can't be at first a human being because the fact that she is black value first (for the others; she is confused about her identity, is her identity being black or just a human being?)

Ruthie doesn't like going to church anymore because she and her parents don't fit into one clique there, her parents doesn't care about this.



Erika 42-44:
Erika likes going to church because god don't care that she is a half-breed.(she is the student director of the church Youth Chor). Today she will sing solo and AJ will be there.
(Erika and AJ were involved in different fights a night before.
Why do they have to fight so often? Do they really like it? Do you have to do it to become respect??)
When Erika sees Ruthie in church she thinks about "kicking her ass".She is mad because AJ hasn't come to see her.



AJ 45-48:
Erika asks AJ if he loves her and she says she loves him. AJ just doesn't know and doesn't answer. Then he goes in chemistry after having missed the last weeks so that he couldn't answer the question on the worksheet he had to do. Ruthie offers to help him with the worksheet. AJ accepted and so they will meet. AJ and Ruthie talk about love and about the question Erika has asked AJ. AJ wants to know what Ruthie thinks about love and how do you know if you love somebody.



Ruthie 49-52:
Ruthie entered AJ's room where AJ is with his friends Wakeen, Jamil and Ray because he forgot that she will come. Ruthie is angry that he doesn't show any willing to learn sth. and that she missed her aerobics for nothing. But then Anthony makes them laughing again. AJ walks her out to her car.
I think they would make a interesting couple.