Ending Of Me And You

Rujian, Zhou

1/28/2016

People Can Change

I have thought about many things after I finished reading the book Me And You. I was surprised by the ending of it, and then I have think about what can I learn from Lorenzo’s story. Lorenzo’s story is full of struggles, but he changes after his sister Olivia’s united coming in the cellar. Olivia changes Lorenzo, but Lorenzo can not change Olivia.

At the end of Me And You, Lorenzo is in the city Cividale del Friuli when is 2010. This will be Lorenzo’s first meet with Olivia after ten years, when Lorenzo and Olivia spent few days in a cellar.

Ten years ago, Lorenzo was a weird kid. He had a lot of troubles in his life. Lorenzo was a person who felt no empathy to other people except his mother, father and grandma Laura. He tried to pretend to be another person in the school, just to protect himself. But Olivia changed Lorenzo, Olivia was a heroin addict and suffered by the withdrawal of heroin at that time. She vomited, trembled and was really sick at that time. This let Lorenzo thought about his grandmother laura who also had heavy sick in the hospital and dying. Lorenzo decided to help Olivia, he did not want to feel the helpless that he had when grandma Laura was in the hospital. He went to find medicines for Olivia, and his relationship with Olivia became very close. When Olivia was heal, she talked about their story in Capri one summer. She remembered those happy time with Lorenzo, and she invited Lorenzo to dance with her. At the very end of the story, Olivia promised to Lorenzo that she would not take drug again. Then she left with a note to Lorenzo.

After ten years, Lorenzo is coming to meet Olivia. Lorenzo becomes more mature, he feels confident when he is talking with other. When Lorenzo finally sees Olivia, Olivia is laying on a table, she is skinny like ten years ago and she looks as beautiful as before. Lorenzo bend over put his nose up against Olivia’s neck. At the end, the writer wrote that Olivia dead because of an overdose.

I was so surprised that I could not believe it. Lorenzo and Olivia were so happy at the last chapter. Both of them changed, Lorenzo gained confident and became more outgoing because he successfully helped Olivia, and Olivia promised to Lorenzo she wouldn’t take drugs anymore. It cures me, and let people believe that the world is beautiful, people can change and become better. But suddenly, Olivia was dead, and she died because of taking too many drugs. It was like a joke, and so ironical.

I was expect that both Lorenzo and Olivia would change a lot about the days in the cellar. Lorenzo would become more mutual, outgoing and feel more confident about himself. And Olivia would keep her words and have a normal, happy life. They might meet each other, and have a very close relationship. Beside on what they did in the cellar, they would become a wonderful brother and sister! They shares some commons, they like talking with each other after all of those things happened, and they danced. I think that even at that time, their relationship became the closest in the world. Moreover, Lorenzo could keep help Olivia, he could encourage her to go to work, or help her recover the relationship between their father. Lorenzo could also keep Olivia away from using drugs, he could continue changing his sister to a good person.

After all, I am very upset about the ending. But the ending also tells us that the world is not perfect. We all know the to get away from drugs is never a easy thing, and even drug addicts succeed in abandon drugs they could retake drugs again. The writer uses a very realistic way to tell us about the real world and the real human being. People can success, and they can false. They can change, and they can keep the old way. Like Olivia, even though she promised, and seemed she really want to get clean from drugs at the cellar. She still took drug again and died because of it.

At the meanwhile, some people can succeed in changing. Like Lorenzo, from his tone of talking with the waitress and the doorman, I feel he change. He becomes more confident, grown up and seems he has been though a lot of things. He is not the little boy who has problem with making friends, dealing with people and his own family. Lorenzo become a man who is independent, he is polite to other people and he has financial ability to live in a hotel and have a car. Even when he saw Olivia was lying on the bed and dead, he talked to the man “Can I stay with her?”.(P152) This reaction of him really impressive me, he really grown up and know how to deal with things happen to him. Also, I believe that Olivia want to change too. She might not use drug for a while, but something bad happened to her and let her emotion crashed. Because of this, she relied on drugs. Then, she felt ashamed and sorry for Lorenzo and did not contact him in the ten years.

After all, Me And You is a wonderful book to read. It inspires me a lot, and tells me a lot. In conclusion, even though the world is cruel and sometime bad things come to people, people can change and overcome if they have courage and confident. In spite of some people could not change, I believe that mostly of people can change and will change better and better. Everything will be fine if you have the faith to make it fine!

Me And You 1

Rujian.Zhou

1/18/2016

Lorenzo And Olivia

In the book Me And You, Lorenzo is the main character, who is a solitary, narcissistic boy. Lorenzo is a different from other kid, he seems to hide the real “he” all the time. He think that all other people are irrelevant except three, his mother, father and grandmother. He is also very clever, who always has a plan in his heart. Lorenzo is the “Me” of the title Me And You. At the other hand, as we speculated at class Olivia, who is Lorenzo’s half sister might be the “You” of the title. Olivia is the daughter of Lorenzo’s father and another women from Como. In Chapter 5, Olivia and Lorenzo first meet each other after the Easter 2 years ago.

At the first, Lorenzo is very unhappy about his sister’s coming. Olivia comes to Lorenzo’s house to find something that belong to her. She does not want both Lorenzo’s father and mother know about her coming, so she called Lorenzo before she comes. She does not know about Lorenzo is hiding in the basement from his mother. When she is told by Nihal, the housekeeper that her box maybe in the basement, and she goes down to the basement. At there, she meet Lorenzo. Lorenzo is frightened by this uninvited guest. He is hiding in the cellar because he doesn’t want his mother know about he does not go to ski week with his “friends” . Lorenzo has planned for this for a long time, he stored the food and put the playstation in the cellar as well as he lies to his mother again about he must go to Alessia’ house alone. He has done all of those things to hide in the cellar, so he is absolutely not want anyone to break his plan. Olivia’s coming is very dangerous to Lorenzo’s plan, he is afraid of Olivia will tell his mother the truth.

So the first time Olivia comes to find her staff, Lorenzo promised her he won't tell his parents about her coming if she won't tell anyone about Lorenzo is in the basement. But the second time, when Olivia asks to stay with Lorenzo. Lorenzo denies her immediately. First of all, if he let Olivia stay with him, he must makes sure nobody knows about this. But he need to open the door for Olivia, he is afraid being seen from Nihal. Also, there are not enough food and water for both of them in the cellar. Lastly, Lorenzo is very solitary, who does not like saty with other people. Lorenzo seems very enjoy his one man life in the basement, as he thinks “If they brought me food and water I could spend the rest of my life here.” So he does not want to his half sister stay with him at first.   

But everything changes soon. Lorenzo’s mother keeps asking to talk with Alessia’s mother. Lorenzo makes some excuses about Alessia’s mother for the first few times. But his mother tells him “ You either let me speak to Alessia’ mother of I’ll call the other kids’ parents”. Lorenzo has no choice but only let Olivia pretend to be Alessia’s mother. Lorenzo agrees to let Olivia stay in the basement at last. Then Olivia helps him out by acting Alessia’s mother like the real.

Lorenzo does not care about Olivia at all when they first meet, he thinks Olivia “She wasn’t even my sister. I didn’t know her.” He agrees about Olivia’s staying only because he has to let Olivia save him from the lie. But after a while, Lorenzo begins think about Olivia. He first read about Olivia’s letter to his father, which about thinking the help from their father. She talks about she was very angry about him, but she learn how to forgive her father. She talks about the story of her and father, and even she will named the chapter of the story “Diary of a Hatred”. Lorenzo’s father treats both Lorenzo and Olivia very strict. Lorenzo might feel some commons things between he and Olivia. And Lorenzo might feel sorry to Olivia because he get all of his father’s attentions and times much more then her. Then he sees that Olivia is very tired. Olivia loses a lot of weight compares to 2 years ago, as the book said “She’d lost a lot of weight and her square cheekbones stuck out.” Based on all of these, Lorenzo concern about Olivia more.

When Olivia is so sick that she groans a lot. Lorenzo think “She was like those people in Villa Borghese…… They’d always scared me.” In deep in Lorenzo’s heart, he feel more and more sorry about Olivia and he concerns her a little bit more. At the end of the Chapter 6, Lorenzo asks Olivia bread, and concerns about the cold water when Olivia want to take a bath.

Fact & Thinking Questions

Fact:

1. What did Lorenzo do in the morning? 

2. What woke Lorenzo up from sleeping?

3. What was the purpose of his mother's call? What did she ask Lorenzo to do?

4. How did Lorenzo answer his mother's phone call?

5. Where was Lorenzo's mother / Lorenzo at that time? 

Thinking:

1. Why Lorenzo's mothers felt Lorenzo was weird when she called him?

2. Did Lorenzo enjoy the day in the cellar? Why?

3. Why Lorenzo pretended to say something to the waiter on the phone call with his mother?

4. What was the purpose of author about writing the environment around Lorenzo? (Such as the neighbor.)

5. What do you think about Lorenzo when he imagined he was the only survivor from Alien invasion? What does it show?

Chapter one

Lorenzo had a ski week, but he felt uncomfortable there. Then he went to his father' place,  where is a room has comic books, PlayStation and other things he likes to play, and have a place to rest. He wants to stay there to spend his "ski week"

Winter Break Story

It was January 1st, the first day of year 2016. At the morning, I met with Benny who is my friends from middle school. We planed to go to Zhenjia, where is a big shopping mall in our city. There are restaurants, game shops and a cinema in there. Both of us agreed that it is the best place to go.

But many people also thought the same with us. When we went to Zhenjia, there were people everywhere. We could not even see the road. There were like thousands of people, we could not move and had to wait for a moment in the cloud of people. We could not see any movies, because there was no any tickets left. At this time, I was very sad because I had not see Benny for a long time, but there is no place for us to enjoy. Then I found out there were 6 of our classmate in Comics Palce, where is far away from Zhenjia. According to them, there were less people. Even though it was far away, we still decide to go there since we could not find any place to stay in Zhenjia. On the underground to go there, I and Benny talked a lot. We talked about games at first, then about our school, our classmates and our study. I noticed that Benny's life was very hard in Chinese high school. He had so much homework to do and had almost no time to rest in workdays. And Benny really study very hard. It was a long way to go there, but I and Benny had a good time in the underground. 

Finally, we met our old classmate after half an hour on the underground. It was nice to meet my old classmates. I remember the time I was in middle school. The Comic Palace has many comic books and toys, which are my favorite. It was like a gold mine for me. We had a wonderful day at the first day of 2016, it seems like this year will be awesome!