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Letters To A Bullied Girl: Messages Of Healing And Hope (2008)

by Olivia Gardner(Favorite Author)

3.63 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0061544620 (ISBN13: 9780061544620)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

William Morrow Paperbacks

review 1: Olivia Gardner, a northern California teenager was severely taunted and cyber-bullied in school. When word got out about the abuse, two sisters, Emily and Sarah Buder decided to help Olivia out by getting people to write her letters to make her feel better. This book, which is not your typical book, is a series of letters from people all over telling their stories to encourage Olivia to embrace life. The author showed multiple sides of the story. The letters in this book are not just thrown on random pages but instead organized by the type of letter. The letters are peoples own stories to Olivia to try to help her understand her situation will get better, and that it is not just her getting bullied. The letters are in separate chapters including letters about the bullies a... morend the bullied. The bullied chapters include being bullied for looks, being different, being bullied by girls, being bullied to the brink, and then finally about those who stood up for themselves and were bullied no more. This helped me understand and separate the letters, but without an understanding of Olivias stories, its hard to understand the comparisons that people are trying to make to Olivia.The book did not live up to my expectations mainly because there was no background information. They didn't tell exactly what happened to Olivia and why she was bullied. Instead, they gave a brief statement that she was bullied on the Internet and taunted at school. When reading all the letters in the book it was hard to understand when the letters were comparing themselves to her. Some would say "I had the same disease, and was teased for it." The only problem is, I had no clue what this disease was until I looked it up and found out she had seizures. The topic of this book, bullying, is a worldwide problem. I feel that a lot of people are getting bullied and because we didn't know specific details about her individual story, it was harder for me to feel for her like the sisters did because I've seen bullying before and didn't seem as severe as Olivias is being portrayed. Therefore the content was not complete without this information about Olivias story.I think that the writing could have been better if Olivia had the time to write to tell her own story. We would have gotten a lot more detail on her story to then better our understanding of the letters. I also think that there would have been more rhetorical strategies used because we would have felt more for her by hearing it directly from her. Another way the writing could have been better is by hearing it from the two sisters to understand why it effected them so much and why they found it so important for people to write her letters. They could have gave us more in detail view on Olivia. The letters did though, give a point of view from a lot of different people which helped us learn about them but not about the main topic, which was Olivia being bullied. The book was more of uplifting letters than an actual story or memoir. The many different authors in this story all had different stories of their own to tell, including advice for Olivia.The most striking feature of this story was how similar the letters from older people were to the letters of younger people. Although the letters from younger people told somewhat different stories then those that were older, they all connected in the way the person was bullied or how the person bullied someone. They all led back to a similar reason why they were bullied and why they bullied. Every single person who was bullied is still effected by it but got past it and have great lives. Every single person who was the bully now regrets it and think they would have been a better person now if they would have known the damage it caused back then.Although there were many things in this book that I didn't enjoy or understand, I think the book was well organized and written to represent not only Olivia but all people that have been bullied. It told stories that people have been involved in that connect to Olivia even when shes doesn't know them. The book sends an uplifting message to people everywhere. I would recommend this book to people because the organization of the letters is easy to understand and the stories told not only show us different types of writing but similar stories that everyone can relate to.
review 2: This book was about letters to a bullied girl. The bullied girl being Olivia Gardner. She was bullied in school because of her epilepsy. This book shows a whole bunch of letters from random people in three perspectives. The bully, the bullied, and the bystander. Each letter is different. Ones are shorter than others, some tell their stories of the ways they were bullied and others what they've learned from being a bully. It really gives the reader an idea of being a bully, bullied or a bystander. This book was alright to read. I thought it was a bit repetitive. I chose to read this book because I know someone close to me who was being bullied and someone recommended this to her. I do recommend this book to anyone who is being bullied.Bullying is a serious issue in our society and it needs to stop. It's horrible knowing that people are being bullied everyday. less

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