Penelope Douglas’s Punk 57: my first Penelope Douglas book
Trigger Warnings: Bullying, loss of a loved one, absent parents, cursing (chose words) and sexual offences.
Ryen and Misha have been pen-pals since the two of them were attending middle school. Their teacher had thought Ryen was a boy and Misha was a girl, so paired them up as pen-pals as an assignment. The two have kept writing to each other ever since but have vowed never to meet in person or contact each other via social media.
Everything changes the night Misha’s band puts on a fan event, and Ryen attends it with a group of her friends. Misha looks up Ryen on Facebook and discovers everything that she’s written in him has been lies. The fact that she hates the popular cheerleaders at school is crazy because Ryen is one or indeed acts like one, which is confirmed when Misha transfers to her school under the false name of Mayson.
Ryen hasn’t realised that her pen-pal is now attending her high school and believing him to be bad boy Mayson; she unexpectedly breaks away from the popular crowd and begins to fall into the arms of her pen-pal. She goes into shock when she discovers Mayson’s true identity through the song lyrics they both wrote together. Why is he here at her school? Misha told her in his letters he’d done enough to graduate early; why did he need to transfer? The answer is unfinished, personal business, and it’s all to do with family. Ryen knew Misha’s mum left when he was two, as he knew her dad left when she was young too. Why didn’t Misha live with his dad? What happened to his sister? Why was she never around these days, and who keeps spray painting throughout the school? They always sign off as Punk.
As a child and especially as a teenager, you want to somehow fit in with the crowd or be accepted in society. Sadly, for some, when they’ve been bullied, their way out is to become the bully themselves, fitting into that popular crowd. That’s precisely what we see with Ryen’s character, who was bullied from fourth grade and wasn’t satisfied when she gained one friend, so she became a bully. As you continue through the story, Ryen discovers that the people she’s surrounded herself with aren’t friends at all and never have been and never will.
Speaking from my own experience, I feel that it’s better in the long run to be your own person, perhaps a bit like Misha – follow your own passions, pursue your own interests than to try and fit in and become something you’re not and have something screaming inside waiting to come out precisely like Ryen.
To those Ryen’s out there, it’s better to be yourself than become the popular one, be the Misha but not the Mayson. Please remember
#beyourself #bekindtoall #dontbeafraid