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.