po·seur (pō-zœrˈ, pōˈzər)
nounOne who affects a particular attribute, attitude, or identity to impress or influence others.
Mid-way through her second year of high school in around 1907, Betsy Ray feels how most kids her age feel about themselves. Bad. Although she's plenty popular, and is considered pretty, she doesn't feel glamorous or mysterious enough. So when she's asked to Milwaukee for 2 weeks by an old friend, she grasps the perfect-ness of this opportunity to change herself.
When she returns to her home town Deep Valley she's totally different, much to the dismay of others. She's dressed all in green, drenched in Jockey Club perfume, and determined to stay beautiful and neat at all times. Another aspect of her changing is her goal to be much more "foreign" now, throwing in random german quotes when ever she feels the need to. One of her goals when she returns is to enchant the new-comer to town, a rich kid with a divine red auto," Phil Brandish. He simply must be crazy about her, for the good of her image. However, this just isn't Betsy. As her friends, especially Cab who calls her new air " La de da," recognize, you can't pretend to be something you're not. Betsy can't hold back her distinct laughter, nor can she prevent her well-known smile from peeking out. Although she's desperately trying to be more serious, and more mature, she just cant.
Basically, Betsy is a poseur. In this part of the book, it's clear that she is pretending to be something that she just isn't. It's very simply put that she wants to be this other Betsy, this more elegant, thrilling Betsy, but she's not. So the fact that she tries to be someone she's not makes her a poseur. She plainly admits to wanting to change, and even made a list about what specifically she can do to improve herself. Throughout the book, she struggles with being this.
Betsy is the kind of person who sees the worst in herself. But truth be told, she's far to pessimistic. She has a best friend, who with many others, adore her. I don't understand why she feels that she must change herself to impress them. So she doesn't have flocks of boys surrounding her like she would like, but she has plenty of friends who are boys, so what if they're not romantically interested? If one was, great. But I don't think Betsy, or anyone else, should change herself to satisfy others. Especially when, like in this case, it's unwanted. Although Betsy might have been pleased with her idea, many others weren't. They just wanted the old Betsy back.
Something i really liked from reading this blog, was that it gave me this kind of subliminal judgement about your character Betsy. It made me feel like she was someone i didn't exactly want to know. This made me want to yell at her and say something like "Why would you do that? You were perfectly fine in the first place, stop being to pessimistic and a Debby Downer!" Even though i never read the book. I thought your writing was very clear and straight forward, there was nothing i would change.
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poopybutt.