Sometimes Good Things Fall Apart ...

“MY name is Chantel Norton and this is the story of the summer that changed everything.” This is the first sentence written in Chapter 1 of Just Like Butterflies (JLB). This young adult novel tells us how summers changed Chantel’s life. [caption id="attachment_127513" align="aligncenter" width="680" caption="Just Like Butterflies ... ©Mamak Ketol™"][/caption] Chantel is a girl from Guangzhou, China who was adopted by Dan and Anne Norton when she was 8 years old. The Nortons live in a place called Northbeach somewhere in America. Chantel has "ugly" scars in her face and this makes her feel insecure with her appearance. In the past three summers, Chantel was an unhappy teenage girl. As the only child in the family, Chantel, now 16, gets everything she needs but love. Chantel spends the first summer with her cousin Grace who comes to visit her. It seems that Grace is Chantel’s only friend at that time. Grace teaches Chantel how to put some make up on and how to make a pass at beach guys. In the following year, again … Grace spends her summer in Chantel’s house. This time Grace meets a guy of her dream, and she decides to travel to Mexico with him instead of spending the rest of summer with Chantel. Chantel suddenly feels the need of having a “relationships”. However, Grace’s beauty and charm makes Chantel even more aware of her own ugly scars. Chantel feels lonely and gets deeper into self-pity of her horrible scars on her face. Chantel’s desire for friendship and even for a date is very strong. Here is Chantel’s reminiscence of Grace’s relationship with her boy friend:

Her relationships were often some sort of mutual understanding, something surreal and untrue, however, a relationship is a relationship, no matter how fragmented and untrue it may be. By then, I knew that all I wanted was a relationship; just something, if not, anything (p. 7).

With that in mind, Chantel begins her first year at college with optimism. Nevertheless, her happiness and faith grows weak. Instead of meeting new people and handsome young man, she often hides in the bathroom and eats her lunch there, while in tears. There is no man, and there is no party at all. Grace’s luck haunted her:

This time, while she talked about the parties she visited, the things she has done to her hair, the clothes she purchased online and how she lost her virginity to a “totally random but super cute guy” at a party-hatred (sic) within me grew. I hated myself for not being like Grace. I hated myself for not being reckless and sparkly, for not being beautiful or perfect, whatever perfect means (p. 8).

Grace doesn’t show up in the third summer, but there are Whitney and Josh who changed Chantel’s life. Both Chantel and Whitney attend a painting class ran by Youth Art Centre where Josh, a young artist, works. Her friendship with Whitney makes Chantel realize how precious life is. Upon discussing a figure, that looks like an angel in a painting, Chantel makes a good reflection of what she sees:

Surely, the angel did have a meaning. Everything is entitled to a meaning, and you have to constantly keep your eyes open in life to make sure you don’t miss the meaning of anything (p. 94).

When Whitney envied Chantel for being strong after her break-up with Josh, Chantel begins to understand the real meaning of friendship and “beauty”.

Whitney envied me. Who would’ve guessed? Maybe what made you beautiful wasn’t perfect hair and well maintained manicures. Maybe it was never something superficial like clothes and flawless make up. Those things did help. But maybe beauty is also about something else, something deeper and more tangible; something which every girl has but are just too scared to let out (p. 207).

Meet and Greet Don’t you think all these conversations and reflections sound like a heavy stuff coming from a teenage girl? A very young girl who has scars for many years, and finally manage to gain faith and confidence. Let alone teenagers, some adults maybe situated in the same conditions. They have their own “scars” and they probably have some weaknesses. Some of them become great pretenders and act superficially. Hence, they need some coverage, branded things or make up to boost their ego. How this last summer changed Chantel’s faith about life? What happens to her relationship with her parents and Josh? JLB will give you the answers. JLB is written by Claudia Natasia who finishes writing this English novel when she was 16! Born in 6 August, 1993, Claudia is still a student at Sekolah Pelita Harapan. JLB is first published by Grasindo in 2010. This 218- page-novel is rich with descriptive language describing surroundings and landscapes. It’s written so beautifully that makes you feel as if you are really in that place enjoying summer and feel like a happy-go-lucky college student. Even the conversations are fluently written. Except for some typos such as “pottery whell” (p. 96: should be: pottery wheel), and “simply overwhel mingly” (p. 184: extra space – should be: overwhelmingly), this is a good read book for a summer. A book that you want to read very slowly as to really reflects on the words – not wanting to miss the meaning or the message underneath. Catatan: Judul tulisan dikutip dan dipenggal dari "… sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together."(Claudia Natasia, acknowledgements, p. vi)