Girl, missing door Sophie McKenzie

Explanation of the title

of the book:

The title fits the book well. Lauren read a site of lost or missing children. She is adopted and now thinks her real parents are looking for her. After 14 years of silence guardian parents she’s persistent to find her biological parents.

Explanation of the climax and anti-climax:

There are to obvious climaxes, these are the parts:

-          When Lauren and Jam are kidnapped by Sonia (2 times).

-          When the Mattews are in judgement for buying Lauren from Sonia

Explanation about the main theme:

the main theme in the novel are family relations. Lauren is searching for her biological parents in the hole story. But it is also about love and hate relations. Jam becomes her boyfriend and Sonia kidnapped them.

A short account about he beginning and the end of the novel:

Lauren is doing a exercise for school about here life, called: “Who am I? “. Because of that she is going to try to find something about here biological parents. Here adoptive parents won’t tell here anything because she’s to young in there opinion. Lauren find out a website about missing children. Then she find a girl who called Martha Lauren Purditt. Here photo is quite similar to Laurens child pictures. so she’s going to search for here, only one other person knows about here plan. That’s Jam. He helps her. …

… in they end of the story they find out who are Laurens real parents and who token here away from them when she was 3 years old. Sonia Holtwood, is trying to kill Jam and Lauren, so she won’t go to jail. But Jam rescued Lauren. And at they and of the story Sonia is still arrested. Laurens biological parents invite her real parents so they can discus where Lauren is going to live. Then she make the decision that she want to live with bought. In the holidays she is in the USA by her biological parents and she goes to school in the U.K together with Jam as her boyfriend.

Main Character(s)

The main character is Lauren Matthews (14) (Martha-Lauren Purditt)

The adoptive daughter of the Matthews and the biological daughter of Sam and Annie Purditt. The biological sister of Shelby Annabelle Purditt (Shelbs) and Madison Gloria Annabelle Purditt (Madi). Lauren was taken from her parents at the age of three. She was on the beach with Annie playing hide-and-seek with a red bucket the day she went missing. Later on in the book she has flashbacks of that day.

Also important character is Jam (15), Laurens best friend. Jam is travelling with Lauren to find her biological parents. Everybody thing that they are a couple but in the beginning of the story they just friends but in thy and of the story Jim asked Lauren to be his girlfriend. His mother is Carla she don’t have much time for Jam because of her work.

Other characters are:

Shelby Purditt (13). They often call her Shelbs. Lauren and Shelby do not get on.

Madison Purditt (6). Her nickname is Madi. Lauren's favorite younger sister. Madi is physically and emotionally bullied by Shelby.

Sam and Annie Purditt. Lauren's birth parents in America. Her mother Annie is tall with black hair and blue eyes.

Sonia Holtwood (Marcia Burns)

The kidnapper who took Lauren at the age of 3 at LongMileBeach where she was playing hide-and-seek with her mother. Sonia later sold her to the Matthews. Sonia changes her appearance all the time; she has many different looks. Sonia kidnapped Lauren 3 times. Once with Jam and Once with Madi.

The Mattews, Laurens adoptive parents in the U.K

Rory, the son of the Mattews.

Summary:

Part One: Finding Martha

Lauren is doing an exercise for homework entitled Who Am I?, in which she has to write about her personality and her life. Eager to find out about her past, Lauren goes on Missing-Children.com, and finds an American girl of her age named Martha Lauren Purditt, who went missing less than two months before Lauren was adopted.

After comparing the photograph of Martha with a photograph of Lauren as a toddler, Lauren finds that she and Martha look alike. Lauren's friend James 'Jam' Caldwell comes round, and compares Lauren's face to the age-progressed photograph of Martha. They find that the two girls look alike. Lauren thinks she may be Martha, and finds out information about her adoption is in her adoptive mother's diaries. Whilst Lauren's mother is visiting Jam's mother Carla, Lauren finds her mother's diaries in the attic, and discovers she was adopted from Marchfield Adoption Agency in Vermont in the USA.

After persuading her family to go on a holiday to a theme park in America, the family go to America (leaving Lauren's adoptive father behind, and taking Jam in his place). While Lauren's mother and Rory are waiting to change planes, Lauren and Jam sneak off and get a plane to Burlington.

Once the plane lands, Lauren and Jam get a bus to Marchfield, where Lauren has a meeting with Taylor Tarsen, the owner of the agency. He refuses to show Lauren her adoption file, but when Lauren mentions Sonia Holtwood, a woman from her mother's diaries, Taylor tells Lauren she was looked after by Sonia before her adoption, and gives her 0 so she and Jam can stay in a motel. Jam informs Lauren that he found out where Lauren's adoption file is, and the two stay in a motel for the night.

That night, Lauren and Jam break into the agency to find Lauren's adoption file, but all that is in it is an address on a scrap of paper. Unfazed, Lauren and Jam go to an 24-hour taxi firm and get a taxi to the address. When they arrive at what they believe to be Sonia Holtwood's flat, they find that a young Spanish woman now lives there. However, they meet an old woman named Bettina, who used to babysit Lauren when she lived in the flat with Sonia. Bettina tells Lauren that she rarely smiled, but looked pretty when she did. On one of these occasions, Bettina attempted to photograph Lauren but Sonia came bursting in, furious. Sonia and Lauren left the day after.

Lauren and Jam set out to find Sonia but end up cold and worried so when a "Police officer" comes up to Lauren and offers to take them to their destination Lauren accepts. After a brief discussion with Jam he accepts and he goes with her. The officer tells them who she really is and they find out she is Sonia Holtwood and she is trying to kidnap them. She gives them drugged orange juice so they both fall into a deep sleep and wake up hours later to find they are still in the car. Lauren pleads with Sonia to let them out and she does: in the middle of nowhere, twenty miles from the nearest place with a name. So Lauren and Jam start walking through the woods where they have an argument. Jam storms off so Lauren just lies down in the snow. She hears voices then goes back to sleep.

The next day she wakes up in a log cabin. She sees Jam and asks him what has happened. He says they were rescued by a man called Glane who took them to his log cabin. He then takes them to a motel for them to stay at because he was going home to Boston. Lauren goes on the internet to find out more about Martha Lauren Purditt. Her parents were Annie and Sam Purditt who lived in Evanport. Lauren decides she will hitch hike to get there but Glane offers to take them there himself.

On the way Lauren is worrying about how she looks but Jam says she looks beautiful and he wants to ask her something.

Part Two: Finding Lauren

At the house, Lauren is met by a girl aged thirteen, called Shelby who does not believe Lauren. Then a lady comes out and asks who Lauren is. Lauren replies she is Martha. Lauren meets the other relatives, her real father Sam and a sister who is six. She stays with them for a while but starts missing her own family. Lauren finds out that her adoptive parents have been arrested and are in prison. After a phone call from her parents' lawyer, she has a row with Annie and storms off, prompting Annie to run after her. Lauren slams her bedroom door and when Annie storms in, the two have a furious confrontation. However, Annie apologises and angrily vows that she will never stop loving Lauren and hugs her, later showing her some baby photos and delights Lauren by showing her some affection.

After Lauren moves in with Shelby and Madison, her two sisters, she realises that Annie is a bit extreme in her emotion with Lauren. Lauren likes Sam much better than Annie, but the person she likes best is her grandmother, who understands her much better than either Sam or Annie. One day, Lauren finds Shelby grabbing and twisting a knot in Madi's skin. Lauren sees many painful, big, brown bruises there and is shocked. Lauren stops Shelby and comforts Madison. When she goes back to her room, she finds her phone with a bullying text message supposedly from Shelby, saying to keep quiet or die. She receives another of these later. One night while Lauren is downstairs making hot chocolate, she sees someone at the door. She recognises him as Jam, and lets him in. He proposes that they run away together but Lauren hesitates and says that she needs time to think about it. She, Jam and Madi all go down to the marine (the harbour of the village) so they can talk. Jam gets mad when Lauren says that she does not want to leave her real family, and storms off. Then she gets another text. She thinks its from Shelby, but it is from Sonia Holtwood saying that her sister will die unless she goes to Sam's boat, the Josephine May. There she finds Madi gagged and Sonia and a paid criminal called Frank. Lauren kicks Frank in an attempt to escape, and he tries to slap her. He is stopped by Sonia, who says that they have to be found unharmed so that it looks like an accident. Later, Madi annoys Sonia by pretending to have an aching stomach. She gets hit by Sonia, sending her flying across the room and causing her to crack her head on a hard shelf. Sonia and Frank then leave the boat, after Lauren lies to Frank saying that she hasn't got her cellphone. Madi and Lauren have been wedged into the room by the Sonia and Frank, but then Jam appears and rescues them.

The next chapter is in the hospital, where Madi has still not awoken after smacking her head. Annie and Lauren are with her when she awakes, and the two share a true mother - daughter moment. Back at Sam and Annie's house, Lauren meets her adoptive parents at the door; they say that they have been released from jail and have been invited there by Sam and Annie. All of them have a conversation and Lauren is asked who she wants to live with: Sam and Annie or her adoptive parents. She replies that she chooses both.

Personal evaluation

Which aspect of the book do I like the most?

I like the aspect: subject matter. It’s a book with a lot of adventures. And I love

adventures!

I think I look just a little bit like the main character. She’s brave, persistent and smart. She’s able to go and find her real parents, searching in

a foreign country, on her own. I think I would do the same thing.

Which aspect

of the book do I like least?

I didn’t like the characterization. I suspected more characterization in this book because you’re taking a view into Lauren’s life and I expect more information about herself and what she likes, thinks and especially feels. Her guardian parents, do they have had feelings too? And her friend is more like a

figurant, although he’s her travelling companion.

Which event(s) in the story appealed me the most?

I really liked the part when Sonia pretend that she’s a policewoman and kidnapped Lauren and Jam. And that she let them out of the car in the middle of nowhere. That’s a very exiting part of the story.

Which event(s) in the story appealed

me the least?

I can’t point one part of this book that didn’t appeal me at all. Although I think the writing style was rather tedious. For instance the sentence on page 47: “The rucksack....front pocket”. Who cares her purse was pink? The information is not necessary! If I must point out an event that appealed me the least, it would be the end. It’s not realistic to combine two families, one in

the U.S, and the other in the U.K.