Debbie: Love or Hate?

Use this forum to discuss the December 2018 Book of the month "The Face of Fear" by RJ Torbert
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Samy Lax
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Re: Debbie: Love or Hate?

Post by Samy Lax »

I always like positive characters. But I guess somewhere I agree wth you on this point too. This much of postivity is a bit too much for me to digest as well :)
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Post by Amy+++ »

From just reading the sample I knew that I wouldn't like Debbie. She came off as too spoiled, and she just seemed to dismiss the fact that her mom died when she young. Now, she is 26 and everything is ok? I can't relate to this character, I am very fortunate to still have both parents and if I lost one when I was young I would probably be a little different, even at the age of 25 because of the event.
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Post by chelhack »

I did not dislike her character I don't believe there is anything wrong with knowing that one lives a pampered life or lifestyle. Plus she had around thirteens years to come to terms of not having her mother around as well, like her mother's death in general. Therefore, I do not altogether see her attitude as being overall dismissive.
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Post by lesler »

I like Debbie because she's a teacher, and feel like she's well grounded because of this. I don't understand how she could have left her teaching job to go to Florida, but I feel the writer didn't think this detail out.
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Post by jgraney8 »

I didn't find it off putting, but it doesn't seem phrased very well. Debbie seems to recognize her good fortune despite the death of her mother. I don't think she dismisses her mother so much as she has accepted her mother's death as part of her past.
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Post by StelKel1592 »

It made me curious, really, as an introduction to a character. It's so interesting to see how different people respond to privilege and to adversity. The idea here of someone framing intense adversity (in losing a parent to death while still a child) in terms of privilege--it's intriguing. Does it suggest intense callousness or does it suggest an intense spirit of gratitude? It also suggests, perhaps, an interesting past/present orientation--if she feels the grieving is a matter of the past, but the privilege still a matter of the present, does that explain it?
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Post by kdstrack »

I did not get that from Debbie's comments. Much time had passed since her mother's death. It seemed that she had developed a mature reaction to the difficulties life had presented. She could have become bitter and resentful of her father, just waiting until she inherited the family fortune. Instead, she developed an attitude of seeing the positive things life had given her. She still had her father, and she developed a close and loving relationship with him.
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Post by holsam_87 »

Debbie came off as a damsel in distress at first, but by the end, I felt like she was a survivor that would focus on helping people.
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Post by Bavithra M »

Ayat paarsa wrote: 02 Dec 2018, 06:52 Yes, these two sentences confused me too, on the one side author was saying that Debbie was a most blessed girl and on the other side the author is saying that Debbie is not that so much blessed as she has lost her mother at the age of 13, and when I read Debbie's opinion about her mother, I got totally shocked.
I agree with your point. I felt the same too.
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Post by Samantha Simoneau »

Ferdinand_otieno wrote: 02 Dec 2018, 07:04 Her personality and life are things i can never jugde unless I were to be in the EXACT same life.
This is true. For all we know, if we had lived through the exact same circumstances, we would feel the exact same way.
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Post by Nyambura Githui »

To me Debbie appreciates that she lacks nothing in her life. After losing her mother at that age, I think she looks at the bright side of her life. It's better than dwelling to all the bad things that have happened.
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Post by Nerea »

Personally, I wouldn't develop any kind of feeling towards the character but embrace and respect their personality. "We are who we choose to become."
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Post by Anon_Reviewer »

RaeReads wrote: 01 Dec 2018, 16:24
On the very first page, when she muses "She was blessed, and she recognized it. At 26 years of age she couldn't have asked for a better life other than losing her mother at the age of 13"
I think the issue here is the grammar/ bad sentence structure. This is something the author should work on because the book was littered with sentences that were either misleading or simply didn't make sense. That said, I didn't take a liking to Deborah until the very end. I found her relationship with Robert, who is several years older than her, discomforting. Glad they broke up.
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Post by Alicia09 »

I agree that Debbie was a very unlikable character. Her happiness at her mothers death, combined with her secret relationship with her father's personal assistant made me hate her during the first 20 pages of the book. She also began flirting with her father's personal assistant as early as the age of 13. She was putting him in danger because he could have gone to jail for statutory rape, even though she was the first person provoking him. Overall, she just seemed like a very selfish, spoiled, narcissistic character. By the time the author did include positive descriptions of her personality and her life on page 64, I was rolling my eyes and thinking "yeah right". I was also glad that Tim got killed, because he had her same arrogant attitude.
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Post by Joe Hadithi »

Maybe she grew as a person after losing her mother? Turning negatives to positives and all that.
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