Amelia The Youngster

In the book, Love and Other Perishable Items, there are two main characters. The first character is Amelia. Amelia is 15 years old and just got a job working at a grocery store called Cole's. She works because money is tight for her family and she would rather be away from her house anyways. She is very relatable because she is awkward (like me!) and struggles in math. She also experiences problems with love and growing up. She spends her time day dreaming about the flirty boy, Chris. The only problem is that Chris is 21 years old. That's a 6 year age gap, unless I did the math wrong...

Anyways, I find Amelia to be very relatable to teenage girls in today's society. I mean, there are a lot of girls that I know who will scream just at the mention of One Direction (cue the screaming girls). They just get so infatuated with one person that they can't stop thinking about them. So in a way, Amelia is an Extreme Directioner.

Moving on to another reason why Amelia is relatable (at least to me): she can not watch any horror movies, read creepy/scary books, or have the guts to go through a haunted house. A quote from the text to support this is," 'I don't watch horror movies.' I mean it. Not ever. They make me scared. Scared of being alone in the house. Scared being alone upstairs at night. Scared of walking home from work in the dark. Penny can watch scary movies and be completely unaffected. She can watch The Silence of the Lambs and then fall swiftly asleep. I didn't sleep for a week after we watched it last year. Never again." (Buzo, 11).This characteristic of Amelia especially relates to me because the whole reason I started reading this book was to escape the creepiness of another book I am reading (though I haven't been brave enough to try to read it again).

Lastly, Amelia is called by a bunch of different names by Chris. Here are a few examples of the names Amelia is called:

1. " 'I,' he said, 'am Chris, your friendly staff trainer.You'll be with me for three four-hour shifts. I will call you Grasshopper and you will call me Sensei, and will share with you what I know. Right?'" (Buzo, 7).

2. "'Oh, you should join the union, Youngster.'" (Buzo, 10).

3. "He has never, ever called me by my actual name," (Buzo, 65).

4. "You are in disgrace, Youngster. Do you hear me? Disgrace." (Buzo, 70).

He refers to her as Youngster, a lot. I mean, he only has used her real name twice. The first time was when he first met her, but then immediately changed her name to Grasshopper. The second time was when he was so angry that everything in his way would be yelled at, shoved, or injured.

Having a relatable character with imperfections is the only way to have a "perfect" character. The reader has to be able to walk in their shoes in order to really understand and believe the story. Otherwise, reading the book would be annoying and not fun. Besides, imperfections are perfect anyways.

Goodnight Readers and Bloggers!

P.S. Amelia also has this adorable little sister who says important things such as, "Amelia...My hands don't come off. They're attached to my body." (Buzo, 10). I agree with Amelia's response, which simply is "So true."