It Happened to Nancy

              The book I am reading is “It happened to Nancy” Edited by Beatrice Sparks. This book is living  a bitter taste in my mouth.  Nancy is a fourteen year old girl who is dealing with a lot of scary events in her life. She was raped by her boyfriend Collin who was five years older than her. She later was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. Nancy is a strong young woman. She kept this terrible news to herself for some time.   

Nancy has been going through a lot at her young age. Her mother is not a good support in her life. Her mom worked long hours, and always come home really late.  By reading this book, I learned not to trust anyone period. I also believe that young girls should not be dating older guys. I have no intentions of doing that, but it helps me to have that note in my head. I was curious to know why Nancy would even cross that line. But I do understand how she is feeling. She does not have the support of her parents. She doesn't mention her father at all. I think Nancy is looking for ‘love’ which she thought she found in Collin. Although she is going through a difficult time, I think she should be a leader and not a follower. Collin took advantage of her in a bad way.  This is a terrible thing for anyone to go through. It wasn't nice what Collin did to Nancy, but it happened, what can I say?

I am not sure but I think the editor named this book “It Happened to Nancy” because she wanted teenagers to know what can happen if they don’t listen. It seems that Ms. Sparks the editor also wanted young girls like Nancy to know about HIV/AIDS. She knows how teenagers think. They do not always like to listen like Nancy did. Here this young girl Nancy is sick at heart. She has gotten raped and unfortunately diagnosed with AIDS. I don’t think Nancy would ever be herself again or around other people especially guys. She would probably feel uncomfortable. Nancy has taught me to always speak your mind and never follow others. She followed Collin and look where that got her. Nancy always wrote in her diary about her deepest feelings and her deepest thoughts. She was very open in expressing her feelings in her diary.

It seems that Nancy got closer to her mom after the incident.  She started telling her mom every single thing that happened between her and Collin. She told her what he did to her, how he acted, to me I would have done that from the start. As a mom, I would be supportive but really mad at the same time. I would say to myself why my daughter is dating a college student. Maybe as a mom I might blame myself for not being at home often. Nancy now notices that she doesn’t have only her diary, but she also has a mom to talk to. I think she has to learn to ‘love’ herself.