"North of Beautiful" by Justina Chen Headley

            I am reading the book “North of Beautiful” by Justina Chen Headley. So far, this is about a girl named Terra. She is in high school and she has a boyfriend named, Eirk. If you saw her from behind you would probably think that she was perfect, but she is not. She has this big mark on her face. She covers it with a bunch of make up. She also loves maps; she inherited it from her dad, which is a teacher at her school. I think that there is a pattern in this book; I think the pattern is that she gets bullied by people for her birthmark and that she doesn’t know what to do, so she believes them.

                I think she doesn’t know what to do because when she couldn’t wear make up when she was little she couldn’t cover it up so she knew that it was true, that the birthmark made her look ugly. For example, on page 5, she four years old, and was at dance class and she was chose to be Cinderella. When she got chosen there was this girl named Alicia, she got angry because she wanted to be Cinderella, so she told Miss Elizabeth in a diva in training way, “But Miss Elizabeth, Terra is too ugly to be a princess!” and at that moment, everyone in the studio, including Miss Elizabeth, was staring at her cheek. At that moment, Terra knew that they were right, that she was ugly. She felt like the ugliest girl in the class, when she wasn’t. I think that the mark on her cheek has become her weakness over the years of her childhood. I think that she should tell the bullies to stop by showing that she doesn’t care so that they will realize that it is a waste of time.

                Another reason why I think she doesn’t know what to do when people bully her about her cheek is that she doesn’t speak up. For example on page 17, when Erik asked found the brochure that Dr. Holladay had given her for her cheek to get fixed by surgery. When he was looking through it Terra was freaking out. When he asked her “So are you going to do it?” and when she replied “ No” he seemed confused and said “Why not?” and that’s when she stopped speaking, all the memories came back to her, the really bad ones of her getting called ugly. I think Terra should have just told him the truth, that she didn’t want to fix her face or that she was thinking about it. Also I think that she should have said that she likes the way her face looked, that she wanted to leave it alone and continue putting make up on it to cover it.

                I also think that she doesn’t know what to do because she never defends herself. For example, When she got bullied during dance class when she was four, she didn’t do anything, she just kept quiet, until the new girl, Karin, had stood up for her and told Alicia “ Your uglier than the ugly stepsisters!”, which had made Alicia shut up. I think that Terra should stop making Karin and other people defend her for her. I think she should grow up a little and stop the bullying, or else it will get worse.

                As you can see, this pattern occurs a lot in the book so far. It occurs so much because she is always trying to get rid of it or trying to not let people notice it by putting make up over it. If you think about it, the Pattern connects to the theme or message because in the book they mention that she is always covering her flaws, and can connect to the theme or message if the message or theme is to be who you are and that you are pretty the way you are, so don’t change the way you look just for the public’s attention. I think that she should just be herself and shouldn’t change the way she looks.