Because She's My Friend

This non-fictional novel, Because she's my friend by Harriet Sirof,is a phychological story about two very different girls who meet at a hospital and become best friends who need eachother to survive.Teri is a young girl who volenteers her time in a hospital over the summer.There she meets a girl her age named Valerie.Valerie is a patient at the hospital who fell and paralized her leg.But later you find out that not only her leg is peralized, her mental state of thinking is also an issue.Its hard to beleive Teri a self described goody good and valerie a witty,wordly,iron willed girl get together and become the bestest friends ever and help eachother throughout life.This book takes place in a little town in Italy.The author used some awesome literary elements to make the book interesting.One thing I like was how she made the book from the point of views of Teri and Valerie.Throughout the chapters it switched from Valerie's thoughts to Teri's.I really liked this book,it was really sad at parts but at other parts it had me smiling from ear to ear.While I was reading the book I felt like I knew the characters and like i was apart of the book.I definitly recommend to those who havn,t read this book,READ IT!

Because She's My Friend by Harriet Sirof is a wonderful book, and is filled with incidents that are easy to relate to. When 14-year old Teresa D'Angelo first begins to volunteer at the hospital, she doesn't plan on having a good summer. That is, until she meets the interesting girl in room 725. With her horrendous mood swings, awful language, and terrible attitude, Valerie Ross is hardly your average patient. Valerie's right leg is paralyzed after falling off a ladder. Yet it isn't until she leaves the hospital that the problems really start. Valerie is already in a permanent bad mood because the operation performed to fix her leg didn't work. After she leaves the hospital and goes home, she goes to physical therapy once a week, and then eventually leaves her tutor to go back to school. Eventually, she starts to imagine that her left leg is also paralyzed, and that soon her whole body will become paralyzed until she can only blink. Tests are run and come back negative for her left leg or anything else being paralyzed. Valerie is eventually placed in a sanatorium after being diagnosed with depression and conversion hysteria. Teri, her closest, and now only, friend comes to visit her often.1. Yet, Valerie isn't the only one in this book with a story to tell. Teri is trying to cope with her new baby brother, her sister leaving for college, school, the hospital, and her principal. She also discovers that sometimes in life you have to go out of your comfort zone to help those that are closest to you, and need you the most. I would recommend this book to anybody who understands trust, strength, and what true friendship is really about.