Focus+Assignment

Focus Assignment: My Opinion Drowning Anna Sue Mayfield Varada S.

Drowning Anna is not a happy book, it's a book that scars you and leaves you crying by the end of it. Shock was basically my main reaction to the novel as I was definitely appalled at seeing what people like Anna go through every day. It made me wonder and question how anyone, such as Hayley, could be so mean that they would want an innocent people to end their life. At the end of the novel, Anna writes in her letter to Hayley, "If I called you a murderer, would that be too strong a word?" I think that the answer to that question is simple, as when someone tortures someone so much that they make the other person feel worthless and makes them end their lives, it should definitely be called murder if not character assassination. I think the main message the author was trying to convey was that sometimes simple actions that you might take as a joke could actually be taking a bigger impact on someone, so be careful about what you say and do. I think the author was successful in delivering the message/theme because she made it clear what kind of impact it was causing on Anna. A thing she could have made better is kind of making it more clear whether Hayley knew how she was making Anna feel, I mean I'm pretty sure that she wanted to cause Anna pain, but I'm not sure whether she wanted her to die. Something that Sue Mayfield did really well was researching so that she got her facts right, she basically interviewed teenagers who had been bullied or had seen bullying first hand to get their thought and opinions. I think this definitely helped her in aiming the book how she wanted, to appeal to teenagers who have gone through something like Anna and give them a sense of being understood. Something I didn't like in the novel was the ending. I found it really weak after such a strong beginning and middle. I wish she had had Hayley apologizing to Anna or something like that, it would have made me feel better to see Hayley losing some of her ego and feeling remorse. I think that almost all of this book was believable because I've seen a lot of methods of bullying and they were all in the book, something that would have helped make it a bit more believable would be excluding a few forms of bullying because otherwise it seems like everything happens to Anna. If I wanted to recommend this book to someone, it would probably have to be someone who has a strong stomach to digest this novel. Overall, I really liked this book because it made me feel what it was supposed to make me feel, and I think that this is a really strong novel. Do I want to read another novel by Sue Mayfield? Definitely!