A Model Mishap

Outside Reading Blog #14

Before I Die

By: Sarah Dessen

Annabelle had been doing Lakeview Models since she was fifteen. As she was at one of her shoots, a man Greg offers them a beer. The pressure that models have these days to fit in, literally is really high. The expectations they have to be perfect in size and everything is just not fair. This reading really relates to the reality of this situation - that teen models are hurting their bodies. When Annabelle's friend Emily tries to pressure her to drink, it's then when the reality hits. That certain cliques and groups in schools and life have things that they do and everyone else must do to be accepted into that group and many teens fall into peer pressure and make mistakes that harm them in many ways. Though the modeling in this book is not brought up again for a while after this chapter, I believe that they will get caught doing something that is wrong and become penalized for it while Annabelle makes the right choice and stays out of trouble to keep her modeling career. I think that the theme here is that even though all your friends might think that the cool thing to do is smoke or drink, you have to realize that you put yourself at a lot of risk in theses situations and that sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing to do are the same.