Independant Reading; Along for the Ride; Analysis

The theme of this book is don't make judgments based on a decision made in the past in which people's perspectives could have differed. This theme relates to the book because before Auden visited her dad, she was so excited about seeing her dad and she didn't care much for her step mom, Heidi. She thought her personality was"fake" and that she was too cheery all of the time. Here is an example of a passage from the book showing Auden's opinion of Heidi;

"The e-mails always began the same way. 'Hi Auden!!' It was the extra exclamation point that got me. My mother would call it extraneous, overblown, exuberant. To me it was simply annoying, just like everything else about  my stepmother, Heidi."(pg.1) "All the things she'd been to me, and more, since she had got involved, pregnant, and married in the last year."(pg.2) "Heidi had the baby,' I said. 'They named her Thisbee.'...'I just hope she 's not expecting your father to be of much help," ( said her mom) (pg.12-13)

Once Auden had arrived at her dad's house, she still had negative feelings towards Heidi. Even though Auden was really looking forward to seeing her dad and spending some time with him, she started to notice that her mom was right; Auden's dad wasn't helping out with the baby. Here is an example of a passage from the book showing how Auden's dad wasn't helpful;

"Dad?' My father, sitting in front of his laptop at a desk facing the wall, didn't move as he said,'Hmmm?' I looked back down the hallway to the pink room, then at him again. He wasn't typing, just studying the screen, a yellow legal pad with some scribblings on the desk beside him. I wondered if he'd been there the whole time I'd been sleeping, over seven hours. 'Should I,' I said, 'um, start dinner, or something?' 'Isn't Heidi doing that?' he asked, still facing the screen. 'I think she's with the baby,' I said. 'Oh.' (pg.29)

The theme is intertwined into these 2 passages because it shows Auden's judgement of Heidi in the first passage and it shows how it changed because she saw her dad not helping out with Heidi or with the baby. It shows that people can't make judgments until they have experienced, or seen, the situation.