Teenaged Rebels

In the book, " This Song Will Save Your Life" the main character Elise does not particularly enjoy her life. Her parents are divorced and she consistently feels down in the dumps. During her time of sadness she makes the decision to cut her arm to try to kill herself. She ends up backing out when a classmate calls the police. When Elise stays at her mother's house she begins to go on walks in the middle of the night alone to get away from her life. One night Elise bumps into two strangers on her midnight walk and strolls into a nightclub with them. As Elise begins to go more and more to the club she starts to DJ there.  At the end of the story Elise's parents find out about her nightclub and while still mad at her they are more annoyed at each other's parenting style. After their bickering they finally decide to allow Elise to continue to DJ as long as one of them accompanies her.

I think that many teenagers could relate to this book, because all teens complain and most of them do not do anything but rebel to express their feelings. Some teenagers become moody and negative just like the main character Elise becomes annoyed and pessimistic at her parents. In addition while teens are in this process they hurt their loved ones. For example, Elise hurts her father by giving him the wrong impression that she hates him when she says she would like to stay at her mother's house instead of his. But really the reason behind her wanting to stay at another house is because her mother's house is in a more convenient location to get to the night club.

Teenagers also rebel by disobeying rules and by doing this they scare their parents into thinking that they have run away or hurt themselves. In the story this exact scenario occurs. Elise begins to go to a night club to go as far away as possible from her problems. Since she has already scared her parents by attempting to commit suicide, sneaking out to this club has the potential to terrify them. Teenagers often do things like this without thinking about what will happen later and who it will hurt.

A lot of the time teenagers do not think before they act and do something stupid and think that they have the right to do this or act this way. Elise thinks the same way. Almost all the teenagers in the world act like Elise when they make a not so smart decision like walking into a strange night club, when you are underage with two strangers you have never met before. By doing this Elise puts her parents trust in her at risk by deliberately breaking rules. Elise does this after the incident of her cutting her arm which makes it an even worse decision because her parents are already frightened. In addition, Elise is also putting the little trust that her divorced parents have for each other at risk because if she leaves to go to the nightclub while she is at her mother's house then her father will blame her mother and vice versa.

In conclusion, teenagers have many different ways of rebelling and expressing their feelings. Some of these scenarios end up hurting family and valuable friends who not only love you but could help you get through these tough times. This is what family and friends are for, to help you and care for you. Elise is a perfect example of a rebelling teen because she does careless things without thinking that end up hurting her friends and family.