“The strangest thing about all this was that, before, in my old life, I had been none of these things: neither a student leader nor an actress or an athlete. There I was average, normal, unremarkable. Just McLean." This is a good start for Mclean, she could be anything she wants but somehow she chooses to be herself. None of Mclean's new characters really match who she was before the divorce, perhaps now she's starting to move on and become herself again. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay“This was my mother as I liked to remember her, with her hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail, wearing cheap sunglasses and smelling like sunscreen and salt. During the day she read terrible romance novels (her guiltiest of pleasures) and at night she sat with me on the rickety chairs outside our room and pointed at the constellations. The images reveal how Mclean remembers his trips to the beach with his mother, he also remembers everyone like it was yesterday. She's trying to see her mother as Katie Sweet, not as Katherine Hamilton. "Parking! I did it for parking," Opal told him. "But when I talked about it today, she completely confused me about it. She started off talking about community responsibility and civic pride..." This quote is important because it shows that Opal has a huge heart. Mclean's father wants her to dedicate all her time to the restaurant and her paid job, but she is dedicating so much time to volunteering and helping the community, making the residents of Lakeview happy and even allowing them to use the restaurant as a place to perform community service. “Two are.” He swallowed, then said, “You know. The person you can call at two in the morning and, no matter what, you can count on them. Even if they're asleep or it's cold or you need to get out of jail on bail... they'll come for you. It's like the highest level of friendship. The character here (Mclean) feels alone in the world. He has no one to call at two in the morning. Right now Mclean knows that by living the life she is living, she will never even have a best friend because she moves around so much and it makes her feel scared and alone. "He didn't take me away." My voice was rising now. He had been poking around, poking and pushing, and now he had found it, that one button that couldn't be pressed. had I changed? Please. "This was my choice. You made choices, though. Remember?" The tone here is hostile, Mclean finally confronts her mother about why she is avoiding her. Mclean is still hurt that her mother ruined their family. “I sighed, then bounced the ball once, squaring my shoulders. Aside from that random Boomerang from a few weeks ago, I haven't gotten my hands on a basketball in years. But I had spent that morning doing things I had never planned to do again, so I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. The author seems to believe that moving forward means overcoming one's fears. Mclean needs to get over his parents' divorce and start living and enjoying life again. One way for Mclean to do this is to start seeing basketball as something positive, not the sport that tore his family apart. “Here, however, it was different. We had come the same way, but everything had changed since then, from me using my real name to my dad starting dating even with no next move in sight. Add in the fact that I was actually on good terms with my mother, and this was officially a whole new ball game. The setting gives the effect of exploration because both Mclean and his father.