The End: The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things

The end of this book was probably my favorite part of the entire story of Virginia's life. Towards the end of the book was when Virginia finally realized her self worth and realized that she actually CAN stick up for herself and do what she wants to. It all started when she went to Walla-Walla in Seattle over Thanksgiving to visit her best friend Shannon who moved there at the beginning of the year. Her mother nixed the idea as soon as Virginia brought it up to her but something inside Virginia pushed her to go and buy a nonrefundable round trip ticket to Seattle with her own money and without her parents knowing. Then a couple days before she was going to leave, she just straight up told them that she was going to Seattle and that she had bought a ticket. Her mother immediately reminded her that she said no absolutely not and that she forbids her to go and Virginia counts to five and simply replies with "I'm going."

At this point of the story is where the turning point occurs. While she is in Walla Walla and reunited with her best friend, Virginia's spirits are definitely lifted. She forgets about everything that is going on back home and just let's herself be happy again. Her and Shannon end up getting body piercings together. Shannon gets her tongue pierced and Virginia gets her eyebrow pierced. She doesn't even care what her parents are going to think because she loves the eyebrow ring and she's finally doing what makes her happy and not what makes everyone else happy. She's no longer feeling numb. She comes back home and everyone is complimenting her on her eyebrow ring, even Brie the popular girl says something to her! She also dyes her hair purple after her mom said that the cute dress she bought doesn't match her hair color. Virginia clearly did this out of spite just to get a reaction out of her mom and Virginia was loving every second of pissing her mom off. Of course everyone loved Virginia's new hair and complimented her on that as well. Virginia joined a kickboxing class and now goes a couple times a week and has met two new friends in that class since then. She has also started a webzine at school for all her classmates and even got some of her classmates to join her club including Froggy. Everything is finally looking up for Virginia and to top it off, at the end of the story Froggy asks Virginia to kiss him in public for the first time in front of all of their friends.

I think what the author of this book is trying to say is that you should always do what makes YOURSELF happy because at the end of the day, it's your life to live and no one else's. Virginia lived her whole life always trying to gain approval and acceptance from her parents by doing what she thought they wanted but she never received that acceptance from them. However, when Virginia finally realized her self worth and started making her own decisions on what she thought was right for herself on her own, that's when she started gaining that respect from not only her parents but also from all of the other people around her. I really enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it to any teenage girl to read! Most teenage girls suffer from body image issues and even if a teenage girl hasn't, every teenage girl has some problem or struggles that they are dealing with in their life.

 Do you think you could relate to Virginia in any way? Why or why not?