"if You Loved Me"

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorCollege, Undergraduate April 2001

download word file, 2 pages 0.0

"If you loved me" Recently, I read a book called "If You Loved Me" by Marilyn Reynolds. Now, don't be fooled by the title. This is not a romance novel or anything like "Romeo and Juliet" at all. It's more of realistic fiction--something that would most likely happen in real life. I would especially recommend this book to teens everywhere because I think that being teenagers themselves, they could be able to understand the problems that the main character in this novel faces during her teen years.

"If you loved me" deals with real-life issues like sex, abstinence, STDs, you know, big decisions that teenagers have to make today. It's about a teenage girl named Lauren Bailey who has to face the hardest decision of her life, and probably in any teen's life. She's overcome by anger for her mother, who is a seriously wasted.

I mean, she wasted her life away by doing dugs, having sex, getting pregnant at a young age; you know, being outrageous. Lauren is a good person with strong beliefs, despite her mother. She's extremely angry with her mother for abandoning her when she was a little girl. So she vows to never become like her mother--like having sex when she's not ready. Even if she has a boyfriend she loves very much. She wants to wait until she's married to have sex, which is a fine decision. If only she doesn't have to deal with her boyfriend's pressure to do it.

At first, he is okay with Lauren not wanting to have sex now. He respects her decision. But soon, he can't stand it anymore. He tries to get intimate, but she declined every single time.

However, choosing abstinence over sex leads to her boyfriend's betrayal. Soon, she found him doing with another girl. Just another thing to pile on top of her anger. She is so hurt and confused, she began to question her decision. Already angry at her mother, now angry at her boyfriend, she's angry at the whole world. She chooses not to forgive her boyfriend for betraying her. But in the end, she found her real father, who helped her sort out her feelings, along with her grandmother. She learns to forgive and forget.

This is the most realistic fiction you could ever find. Once again, the main point is choose abstinence over sex. At least for a while. The character, Lauren is portrayed as almost real life. The author gave her something to struggle through life with because teenage years are those times when you struggle the most through hard decisions. I think she really tells that through Lauren by making her a character who seems normal on the outside but is filled with other problems on the inside, and she must learn how to deal with them at the end through her grandmother, who is leading the way for her to make all the right decisions.