Friday, October 29, 2010

If I am Missing or Dead by Janine Latus

If I am Missing or Dead is about Janine Latus, and the story of her life growing up, becoming an adult, dealing with domestic violence and the struggles she had gone through up to this point. She grew up with a large family, she had four sisters, Jane, Pat, Amy, and Janette, which is Janines deceased twin sister. Throughout her life her family was always there for her with an exception of her father. Janine moved away from her family after a couple weeks of turning 18, she could not take her fathers attitude towards her anymore. So she took off but still kept in touch with her mother and sisters. Her youngest sister Amy always looked up to Janine and when she moved out it broke her heart. After graduating high school Janine went to college and graduated and went to community colleges and got many degrees and found the major she loved, journalism. She then gained a boyfriend Micheal.

Their relationship was perfect, until they went on a ski trip Janine made a ungrateful comment and Micheal blasted her many times in the face and ribs. He apologized, she took him back. Janine left Micheal after another incident like the last and called her collegue Dr.Kurt to look at her ribs, he determined that she had a broken nose and ribs and nothing much could be done. He apologized and throughout work days there was innocent flirting between the two. Soon enough her collegue tells her Kurt is married. "He's married, you know, his wife is pregnant".Later on Kurt says he will move out, divorce his wife, and be with Janine when the baby is six months. She is happy as can be, she has a family and gained two step kids, she is truly in love with Kurt, she marries him. After a while she makes him upset by looking at other men and he hits her.She is disappointed that this relationship might be like her last. She calls her sister every so often to ask for advice and see how she is doing.

Amy is married to an abusive alcoholic. He has lost all of his jobs and Amy realizes she cant keep paying all of their bills plus her husbands expenses, after a couple years Amy tells her self she has to divorce him and it is the right thing to do. She is lonely and battling obesity. She tries her best to lose weight she conquers her goals when she nearly loses 50 pounds. One day Janine calls her and Amy says she has met someone online and she offered for him to live with her, his name is Ron Ball. When talking to Amy, Janine thinks everything is fine. Amy tells her they leave love notes around the house and cuddle before amy goes to work but they are not involved physically and that he respects her too much. On the other hand Kurt and Janine are going through a so called "rough patch" in their marriage. He wanted her to be sexier and wear uncomfortable, and revealing clothes in pubilc, he also suggested she get a breat augmentation.

To make him happy she does everything he asks. But after awhile Janine gets sick of the pushing around, jealousy, and abuse. She Talks to Amy for the last time a couple days later, "He said he was going to kill me, but he was just kidding, i told him it wasn"t funny", says Amy. Janine tells Amy about her wanting to leave Kurt for the sake of their adopted daughter. She follows through, after all those excuses of "he loves me" and "he just wants to make sure i love him", she divorces him. A couple days later she gets a call from her sister Jane, she asks if Janine knows where Amy is or if she has talked to her because she hasn't been to work in three days. The family reunites and tries to find what happened to Amy when they come upon a mysterious, tell all note in her desk drawer.

1.Why do you think Domestic Violence is still an issue in our society today?

2.What do you think happened to Amy?

3.Why do you think Janine and Amy both leap from guy to guy after a divorce?

2 comments:

Abby M. 1-2 said...

1. I think that domestic violence is an issue today because women get trapped in a cycle of violence and forgiveness, and do not think that the violence really is a problem until itis too late. Often women will make excuses for their men, as Amy and Janine did, saying that they still love them or they do not really mean to be violent. Women are too afraid to leave, thinking that this will make things worse, and the situation escalates until awful things happen. Women begin to seee warning signs of violence, they need to get away.

2. I think that Amy may have been killed by her husband when he was drunk and did not know what he was doing. This would be a likely outcome due to the fact that he was an alchoholic throughout the book, and was often violent towards her.

3. I think that Amy and Janine never had a positive male example in their lives. Their father was abusive, so they did not know what a true, kind father figure was and how a good man should act. Beacuase they did not have this model they fell for any man who seemed to love them. The men they both married and dated are strikingly similar to the description of their father. Janine and Amy fall for these men becuase they do not realize that men should be any different.

Amanda F 7-8 said...

@abby:i agree with you about all of your answers towards these questions. after reading this book i had the same insight on all of these as you do. You are, for the most part right about question 2, with the exception of a few things. i also believe they accepted any man that show them any kind of love whats so ever because they thought how their father acted is how men acted in general and their were not any good guys.