Outside reading blog #3

Just as Astrid thought suffering would never end with Marvel's wrath, she is taken to Claire--her new best friend and loving foster mother. Never before has Astrid met someone who genuinely cares about her and accepts her as who she is. Claire is sweet, always smiling, genuinely cares about the welfare of others and is always trying to please people. Clarie becomes the first person in Astrid's life that she can trust and admire as a respectable adult and role model. This intimate relationship between Claire and Astrid can be compared to the relationship between Oskar Schell and his grandmother in the book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. In the novels, both Claire and Oskar's grandmother act as guardians for their younger companions, Oskar and Astrid. Both Oskar and Astrid struggle with overcoming great losses in their lives--Oskar looses his father and Astrid, her mother. Claire and the grandmother play crucial roles in their process of healing by always being there in times of need and always expressing uncondtional love. Oskar even thinks, "She was always waiting for me [...] I don't know how she knew when I'd be there. Maybe she just waited around all day"(102). Similarly, Astrid reflects, "I had never come home to someone waiting for me before, someone looking forward to the sound of my key in the door [...] I had Claire now, waiting for me. She was all I needed"(217). Before, Astrid never felt such genuine love from someone and thinks it a little weird. But who can refuse love? Astrid certainly can't, and soon with trips to museaums, theatres, shops, a hiking trip in Oregon, and constant care, it seems like Astrid is on the way to full recovery.

However, it seems Astrid has the worst of luck. Even her blissful stay with Claire is jepordized by Claire's husband, who is having an affair and is also threaten by Astrid's own mother. In a visit to Astrid's mother in prison, Ingrid, who is jealous of her daughter's intimate relationship with Claire, ruins it by telling something secret that Claire is tricked into thinking will help her disputes with her husband, Ron. Astrid, at this point, hates her mother and warns her, "Do screw it up for me [...] If you love me, you'll help me." But Ingrid merely responds, "I would rather see you in the worst kind of foster hell than with a woman like that." She is selfish and this is eventually the cause of Claire's suicide.