#sequoia jess cooper

[jesscooper16]

Entry #1

Hello everyone. Since this is my first post I want to give you an introduction about myself. My name is Sequoia Cooper, but I prefer to be called Jess. I’m 16 years old and at a young age, I have already battled many challenges in life. I lost my mom in a car accident not so long ago although this may seem like a sensitive topic, I like to use it as a reflection. The accident also left me partly crippled, affecting my ability to walk, but I am slowly recovering with therapy. Soon I will be living in Alaska with my dad, but I hold a grudge towards him because he never puts in the effort to see me, I’m also scared I might not recognise him. I’ve studied this one picture of him since my “Mom had gotten rid of the photos of them together but held on to one of him alone, just for me,” but what if he looks completely different. Anyways, that’s it for now, I hope you learned a bit about me.

-Jess.

[ahb-writes]

To survive you need to learn to hold contradictory things in your head at the same time. I am going to die; I am going to live. There is nothing to fear; be wary of everything.

"Jess Cooper" (I Am Still Alive)

[ahb-writes]

It was the first time I'd laughed since the accident, since mom died, and it felt like coughing up burrs. It felt good, too, though I only realized that after.

"Jess Cooper" (I Am Still Alive)

[ahb-writes]

Book Review: ‘I Am Still Alive’

"I don't know how to be properly afraid yet... "I don't know how to tell the difference between one kind of fear and the next. The fear that makes you fast." (Cooper)

But for fiction with only one substantial character, I AM STILL ALIVE is nevertheless beautifully written.

Marshall's work has a consistent voice and honors a long and distant tradition of plain-spoken novel-writing that pulls the most exquisite from the most naive: "My body's a bit broken, but it doesn't mean I'm a broken person" (p. 127), "In this moment, I am that empty girl, the girl who can do whatever she has to" (p. 211), "I haven't seen a human being in weeks — months — but I've gotten good at watching" (p. 278). Jess is strong. She cracks and nearly breaks, on multiple occasions. Death and fear and the cold nearly take her life more than she can count. But she perseveres. For herself. For the memory of her family. For revenge. And so much more. The strength and fascination one finds with this character is due as much her endurance as with her abject willingness to admit her faults and to acknowledge each and every untimely brush with the end: "I think I am going to die here" (p. 82).

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