Go against the social norm

By weilla yuan
October 20, 2014 - 13:46

In book All Over Creation, Yumi is a character with strong personalities. At first, I really do not like her: rebellious, ran away from parents, impatient, selfish, etc. Then I realized, I was judging her with social norms.

People consider kids who ran away from their parents as bad kids with no filial towards their parents. However, maybe the fault is not all on her. towards the end of the book, Yumi confessed that she ran away because she thought her daddy does not love her anymore. Kids make mistakes, and they need adults to forgive and teach them. Also, people use judgmental looks on Yumi's kids, because all three of them have different skin color. I was judging on her, because this is not what everybody is capable of doing. Then I realized, this is not what everybody is capable of doing!! Isn't that cool? To have a small diverse community in the family!

Yumi is the character who goes against the social norms. when people are judging her, they should think of her bravery that they do not have.

Clarifying

Supporting

Complexifying

Revealing

Before reading any novel, it is usually easy to dive in with one's social norms set in stone. Reading All Over Creation rids of the urge to judge because there are so many cicumstances at stake. Just when you begin to develop an opinion whether it's positive or negative, the lens from another character adds more to base your ultimate judgement on which still isn't concrete because there is so much to consider. This book was a tough read. I had to go back and reread because I was not used to the constant change of which character was now being focused on.

Weaving

Challenging

Unspecified

Impressions

When I was reading, I had assumed that I was going to like Yumi—this is due to pre-judgement based on literary terms. She's the protagonist, with that POV of hers, and as a kid she was the shining princess in the play. However, right when it described the big potato costume on the sidelines, I felt like I was reading through Cass's eyes. I had figured that Yumi, when she came back to Liberty Falls, was going to be an extension of how she was as a kid, the life of the town, doing everything, having fun, that sort of deal.