Feeling Sorry for Celia -setting

The book Feeling Sorry for Celia is written in letters, so it doesn’t really explain the setting that much, but the entire book takes place in Australia. But being more specific, one of the places that Elizabeth went was Coffs Harbour. She went there with her friend Saxton to rescue Celia from the circus she ran away too. The three stayed in Saxton’s aunt’s house, and Elizabeth writes that the house has a really big window overlooking the beach. The ocean moves around lazily and the sand is a beautiful white. Coffs Harbour is located in the northeast region of New South Wales. I think I would really like to visit Coffs Harbor because it looks like a really beautiful and peaceful city. There is a 90km string of beaches that makes up the Coffs coast!
Another place that Elizabeth goes to is Double Bay. Her dad is living there for a year while he’s in Australia for his job (and her half-brother and her dad’s wife are living there too, but her dad never tells her). Also, her pen- pal Christina’s cousin Maddie lives in Double Bay and goes to Trinity Ladies College, but that is not really important. Double Bay is in Sydney, which is on the South East edge of Australia.
At first, I thought that the book took place in present time. I thought that because the characters in the book kind of have to deal with the same problems and pressures that people in our generation have to go through. The whole book talks about how strong Celia and Elizabeth’ s friendship was and had been since they were babies, but then they started drifting apart because they got different interests. I think that lots of kids have to go through that, but that wouldn’t necessarily mean that it’s present time. Most people have always had to go through something like that. Then I realized that the whole book is written in letters, and never once talks about e-mailing people or texting people or even having cell phones! If it took place in present day, the fifteen year old main characters most likely would have had cell phones, or at least e-mail. I looked at the copyright of the book and it was published in 2000, so I’m guessing that the book took place in the 1990’s. That makes my first guess wrong.

Feeling Sorry for Celia - theme

In the book Feeling Sorry for Celia, I think there are a couple themes. One of them could be that “it doesn’t matter what other people think of you, it just matters what you think of yourself”. At the beginning of the book, the main character Elizabeth keeps getting notes from all these clubs like “The Association of Teenagers” and “The Society of People Who Are Definitely Going to Fail High School” that tell her that she is an embarrassment to teenagerhood and that she is going to fail because she is not doing any homework or studying. She is always feeling really self conscious, and never really talks to anyone except her best friend Celia. But at the end of the book, when the clubs are saying mean things about her in the letters, she finally writes them back and says that her life is going great, and the next time they write to her she will flush the letter down the toilet instead of reading it.
Another theme this book could have is “When one door closes, two others open”.
Elizabeth has some hard times in her life, but always seems to find a bright side. Like when Celia ran away to join the circus and was gone for a really long time, Elizabeth would write to her pen pal Christina, and later on they became best friends. When Elizabeth starts to really like this boy named Saxton and then he asks Celia out, she starts getting these anonymous notes from a guy from Christina’s school who has a big crush on her. Every time something bad comes into Elizabeth’s life, she always finds something positive.
A third theme could be “You don’t need a lot of friends to make you happy; you just need one really special friend.” At the beginning of the book, Elizabeth only has one friend, which is Celia, and they do everything together. But when Celia runs away, Elizabeth is left by herself with no one to talk to. She tries to make friends with other girls in her school, but she doesn’t find any that she would really like to hang out with. So she just keeps writing to her pen pal Christina about how she misses Celia and is worried about her. And that makes her feel better. The two are always writing to each other, and they become best friends.

Feeling Sorry for Celia- character1

In the book Feeling Sorry for Celia, the main character is Elizabeth Clarry. The book doesn’t really describe what she looks like, but when she meets her pen pal Christina, she says that Elizabeth is really pretty. Also, someone once said that she looked like and elf, because she has really pointy ears. The only makeup she wears is banana-flavored lip gloss, if that even counts as makeup. In her room, she doesn’t have any posters except for one that her mom designed. She has a paper chain made of Christmas cards hanging from her curtain rod and a Little Mermaid quilt cover. Elizabeth’s an only child and has a dog named Lochie. She and her mom live near Double Bay, Australia. Her dad left them when Elizabeth was little and now lives in Canada with his wife and child, Richard Clarry (who is Elizabeth’s half-brother and is only three months younger than her.) When her dad visits, he always take her out to a fancy restaurant and buys her wine to see if Elizabeth can taste the special flavor in it (Elizabeth never really tastes anything in it other than red wine, at least not anything good). They never know what to talk about, so the dinners are always pretty awkward. Elizabeth’s fifteen years old and goes to a Catholic school. She barely ever does her homework, and instead writes papers on why she shouldn’t do it. She loves volleyball and long distance running, and in the book she runs in the Forest Hill half marathon and finishes in the top five! At the beginning of the book, Elizabeth is very shy and self-conscious. Her only friend is Celia Buckley, who someone on their bus described as a “fairy-princess”. Celia is kind of an odd person. She’s running away all the time and loves to do adventurous (which are mostly dangerous) things. When Celia runs away, Elizabeth’s usually by herself, an outcast of the school. She’s also a very sarcastic person always saying things like “I think it’s stupid to spoil a good book by writing an essay on it, so I’m not going to write one” or “the guy next to me just coughed and I saw a little splat of gooey green stuff land on my math book, so I am not going to do math”. Throughout the entire book, she’s a really funny and interesting character.

Feeling Sorry for Celia - Recommendation

I read the book Feeling Sorry for Celia by Jaclyn Moriarty, and I would rate this book a 9 out of 10. I really liked the whole book, but was kind of confused at how the book was all written in letters. It was kind of weird that when the different clubs and societies wrote to Elizabeth, they wrote things about the other clubs’ letters. Like when one club would say “Elizabeth, you should stop running in marathons” another club would say “Don’t listen to that club, keep on going!”. It was a little less confusing after you got used to it and got farther on in the book. I also didn’t like how Celia kept running away. First she ran away and join the circus, then Elizabeth rescued her, next she ran away with Saxton (her boyfriend) to go jump off a cliff, but she was stopped, and after that she ran away with Saxton, Maddie (Christina’s cousin) and Maddie’s boyfriend to go to New York, but were found and stopped before they could get plane tickets. Why did she keep running away? Why not just stay at her house? Well, Celia was already a peculiar person, maybe the author just added in to make the book more interesting.
I think my favorite part in the book was when Elizabeth and Saxton rescued Celia from the circus she ran away to. They brought Celia to Saxton’s aunt’s house and had to stay there for a long time after because Celia was so sick. I like this part because I thought it was really cool that Elizabeth would do all that for her best friend. But it made me kind of sad when they got back from Saxton’s aunt’s house and started going back to school again that Elizabeth and Celia were drifting apart.
I don’t really know who I would recommend this book to, but I’d recommend it. The book is mostly about friends and Elizabeth learning to like who she is, so I’m guessing that mostly only girls would read this book. The book doesn’t really take a huge amount of time to read because the end of every part’s always the beginning of something suspenseful. Elizabeth’s always trying to think of a way to save Celia from what ever crazy idea that came to her head and made her run away. The book’s really unpredictable and exciting.

Feeling Sorry for Celia - conflicts

In the book Feeling Sorry for Celia, there are a lot of really big conflicts. One of the bigger conflicts would have been when Celia ran away to join the circus in Coffs Harbour. When Elizabeth first heard Celia ran to the circus (she runs away a lot) she was relieved Celia was still alive and well, and Celia was glad she could be in a circus because maybe it was her dream. All is going well until Celia starts writing to Elizabeth that she has a really bad flu, and Elizabeth thinks it might even be glandular fever. Also, she was getting along really well with the circus manager, and they were playing chess every night. But one night Celia, being really sick, asked if they could play chess inside, and when they go in the manager’s caravan, he tries to make a move on her! Elizabeth is getting really anxious about Celia, so one day at her friend Saxton’s house they start talking about her, and Saxton suggests that they go rescue her, and can stay at his aunt’s house in Coffs Harbour. They end up going and making a really devious and secretive plan to save Celia, and it works! Later, even the Society of Amateur Detectives writes to Elizabeth, saying that they were really impressed with the plan.
Another bigger conflict was when Celia and Saxton tried to kill themselves. Celia was back from the circus for a while now, and the girls were drifting apart. Elizabeth kept trying to talk to Celia, but all she liked doing now was hanging out with Saxton, who was now her boyfriend. Celia and Saxton run away together, and a little while later Elizabeth gets a letter from her saying that Elizabeth hadn’t been a supportive friend of Celia’s going out with Saxton, and that she was being kind of cruel. But Celia didn’t want Elizabeth to blame herself, and that what she and Saxton were going to do had nothing to do with her. They said they couldn’t live in such a vicious world and that the next night they were just going to hold hands and jump off a cliff.
Elizabeth is not going to let her friend do that to herself, so she called her mom’s work and interrupted their meeting to tell her the news. Her mom called the cops and they all went up to the cliff the two said they would be at. As soon as everyone got there, Saxton just sat down and started sobbing, but Celia sprinted toward the edge and flew off the cliff. But she jumped too far and landed in water, so she didn’t kill herself, but she was still in the hospital with serious injuries. Elizabeth sat with her the whole first night in the hospital.

Feeling Sorry for Celia - character2

Elizabeth Clarry definitely changes throughout the book. At the beginning of the book, she’s really shy and self-conscious. She doesn’t really hang out with anyone except Celia, and when Celia runs away, she’s all alone. School clubs and societies are always writing to her, telling her she’s an embarrassment to teenagers and that she’s pathetic. In the book, Elizabeth tells the societies that their letters make her cry into her pillow each night before she falls asleep. But, reading all the letters she and Christina exchanged, Elizabeth seems like a really kind and comforting person. Every time Christina had a problem she didn’t know how to fix, Elizabeth would help her calm down and tell her some suggestions that might solve the problem. In the book, Elizabeth never criticized anyone.
At the end of the book, Elizabeth’s still polite and supportive, but she is more confident in herself. When the Society of Teenagers writes to her, criticizing her about how even though she did awesome in her marathon, threw a party that was a big hit, and might have a boyfriend, she still isn’t a good teenager and should go hide and lock herself in a refrigerator, Elizabeth finally writes them back. Elizabeth tells them that she no longer cares what they think about her. She tells the society that she wants them to remove her name from their mailing list and stop judging her, and if they write to her again, she won’t even open the envelope. Elizabeth will just rip it into little tiny pieces and flush it down the toilet. Also, in around the middle of the book, Elizabeth starts getting anonymous notes from a stranger who rides her bus. She tells Christina about it, and Christina writes her back saying she knows who the stranger is and that he goes to her school. A little while later, Elizabeth throws a party and invites her anonymous note writer. He comes, but they don’t talk to each other the whole night, are both too shy. But close to the end, the guy (he doesn’t have a name) finally calls her, and Elizabeth actually agrees to go out with him. I think writing to Christina ( who was a complete stranger at first) really helped Elizabeth get more confidence, because she had to tell a stranger all about her, and to some people (probably Elizabeth) that can be scary.