Phoenix Rising Essay Example for Free

Phoenix advance EssayThe Young adult novel Phoenix Rising or how to survive your life by Cynthia D. Grant is a candid sensitive story about the serious effects of seventeen-year-old Helen Castles death from cancer on her family. The story is told through the eyes of Jessie who has been traumatized by her older sisters death. Jessie and the other members of her family begin a healing process, while Helen, whose universe of discourse we see through Jessie comes to terms with a life that seems capricious and unjust to Jessie. She pure tones pain, anger, l unrivalledliness, confusion and withdrawal throughout the novel. The family is shattered. Its new dynamics are realistically revealed with the already strained relationship between Lucas, and the father that become explosive. Jessie reads on in the journal to learn Helens feelings as her cancer progresses, which ranges from morbid despair to sailing hope that is made more poignant to the proofreaders reading along with her. T he setting of the story is white, comfortably middle-class, California suburbia.The characters in Phoenix Rising are of come intelligence and are raised above being stereotypical characters by the pain, reflection, and eventual growth of Helens death forces upon them. They remain true to their backgrounds and natures throughout their trials and adjustments. It is the chase after of Cynthia D. Grants talent that the reader never doubts they are reading this novel through believable teenage eyes. The central character of the novel is Jessie, and the one who is most dangerously affected by the older sisters death.Jessies tendency is not only to idealize her sister making her feel worthless, and unattractive but she also feels that she has failed to reach Helen and talk to her about her illness making Jessie shut herself off from her father, mother, her jockstrap Bambi, Helens boyfriend Bloomfield, and their next-door neighbor light Sara Rose. Jessie not only stops eating toward the end of the novel, she also shuts herself off more ultimately refusing to leave her room.Jessies brother Lucas is the kind family philosopher. On the surface, until now he plays a role of a rebellious youth whose love for loud rock music. He is an exceptionally good electric and acoustic guitar player and this puts him at odds with his father, whom he engages in arguments at the slightest opportunity. Jessies hard-working architect father seems fixated on his role as a family provider and Lucas as the antagonist. Jessie tells the reader My father thinks he wont cry as long as he keeps screaming.It is as if the father and the other members have been so traumatized by the Helens death that a kind of static role-playing is easier for them than facing their world and moving on with their lives. Jessies mother seems simply to have been bludgeoned into being a relatively passive person who can do little more than to keep up with the necessary household chores, to weep for her oldest daug hter, Helen as well as the self destructive, Jessie and to drink several glasses of wine to dull her pain. Two more important characters round out the characters in this novel.One is Bloomfield, who is always called by his last name. He is Helens boyfriend and the other is Bambi. Bambi is both sisters plump, loud mouthed, and mildly sex-crazed friend. Jessie reads further into the Helens journal and discovers Bloomfield is not the fair-weather friend she has criticized him as being. Similarly, she finds there is more to the tattooed, fake nailed Bambi than meets the eye. She is surprisingly admirable for her down-to-earth, her common sense ability to cut through the silliness that ordinarily surrounds her.