Jacob Have I Loved

Author: Paterson, Katherine

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Published in: 1980

Reprinted by: Harper Trophy (1990)

Number of pages:263

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Main characters:

Sara Louise, Caroline, Call, Captain

Plot:

Sara Louise and Caroline are twins. They live with their parents and grandmother on a small island called Rass near the USA coast. They both feel that they are in fact trapped on this small island, but otherwise they should be happy. However, Sara Louise is not. She feels like nothing compared with her sister, who is better in everything which other people would appreciate. And therefore Sara Louise is always behind Caroline. The book describes the life of Sara Louise from her birth to the time she leaves the island and stars a new chapter of her life. It shows her problems with her sister, her family, her friends, her feelings and most importantly with herself.

Comments:

What I find most important is the message the book sends to readers and that is that your decisions are what makes your life going so you should not wait for the others to do them for you. The book is readable and quite catchy. The level of english is OK.

Extract:

Caroline was so sure, so present, so easy, so light and gold, while I was all gray and shadow. I wan not ugly or monstrous. That might have been better. Monsters always command attention, if only for their freakishness. My parents would have wrung their hands and tried to make it up to me, as parents will with a handicapped or especially ugly child. Even Call, his nose too large for his small face, had a certain satisfactory ugliness. And his mother and grandmother did their share of worrying about him. But I had never caused my parents "a minute's worry." Didn't they know that worry proves you care? Didn't they realize that I needed their worry to assure myself that I was worth something?