Reading Log #6

Title: Aftershock
Author: Jill Atkins
Text Type: Novel
Date: 21/09/17

The novel Aftershock by Jill Atkins is about a family of four who decide to take a holiday and go to an island they call paradise. One beautiful day they experience a disaster that changed their lives. 'Paradise' was struck by an enormous tsunami.

It got me thinking about how easy someone can be taken away from you. It also made me think about being nice to people because you never know if when you see them will be the last time you see them or not. In this novel, the main character Madeleine and her mother have an argument about what Maddy was wearing and how much make up she had on. Madeleine then tells her mother she hates her before running away. Madeleine regrets what she had said to her mother once the tsunami had hit and she could not find her mother anywhere. This got me thinking about how most teenagers treat their parents without realizing what could happen a second after they say the nasty words like "i hate you".

An important lesson to learn from this novel is to listen to your parents about what they think because most of the time, they are just trying to help you or keep you safe. In this novel, Madeleine does not listen to her mother when she tries to tell her to change her bikini because it is showing to much skin or to take off some of the make up she is wearing because it makes her look so much older than she is. Her mother was trying to keep her safe because wearing a bikini that shows too much of her body and wearing lots of make up to make her look older could put her daughter in danger. In can put her in danger because there are creeps in the world that could try kidnap her or even rape her, but Madeleine did not think about that. Most teenage girls leave the house showing a lot of cleavage and wearing really tight pants to show off their 'curves', but they don't realize the danger of all of that. It might be cool to do that in front of your crush so they think you have a nice body but what about when your walking home at night down a long dark alley way and a creepy elder man thinks that your body is nice too?