Teenage Boys and Brent Runyon

It is very interesting how Brent uses writing tricks to connect with the reader. “Stop tearing. They are tearing at me. Tearing away my skin. Please stop. Please” (pg. 26) reading this part of the book made me feel compassion with Brent. This was his goal, make the reader feel connected with what he is felling. Repeating the word “please” shows how he in a way feels stopped, he is forced, forced by a part of him that tells him to committee suicide.

Teenagers. Big word, thinking that one passed from being a little kid to almost a grown up, makes kids feel important and exited. This is the way Runyon feels. While writing he says such thing as “I hope I don’t get an erection” this makes the reader feel Brent’s immatureness when talking about erection. Teenage boys must connect with the way he describes his feelings. Talking about this is a thing that would never pass through a girls mind. Boys find this kind of topics more normal.

The way he refers to women also demonstrates his personality, “so many of the nurses here could be models. Especially Rachel and Barb And Tina, of course”  I can see how he enjoys when the nurses take care of him. All the boys would love to have pretty nurses taking care of them! Especially if they are the ones dressing them.  At least he finds some kind of distraction. All the day lying on bed, this should be very boring.

 “I’ve got these two great door-sized posters, both of the same girl in the same skimpy underwear…… She’s so sexy.” (pg. 192) the way he uses the word “sexy” shows his need of some distraction in that depressing hospital room. This is relates perfectly with how my friends buy the SOHO notebooks with the girls in bikini in the cover. As teenagers they need this distraction and fantasy showing how they are going through a phase.