Saving Grace Essay

In the novel Saving Grace, Grace's brother, Matt, dies in a car accident and  she completely changes.  Things she used to love, now seem foreign to her.  She can't remember the last time she saw one of her friends, or the last time she played lacrosse, or even laugh. Because of this, her personality changes when she goes back to school and is approached by a 'popular' girl.  She decides that since she's sad it's okay if she wants to rebel.  She starts to drink, fall behind in class, and steal things, all because she lost her brother.

Death isn't an easy thing to handle, especially when your brother dies.  Grace didn’t know how to cope with the pain, the only thing she knew how to do was rebel because of it.  She thought that she had an excuse to act out, since she was sad because of her brothers death.  Because her brother died, she thought that it was okay to act out. The effect of her brother dying was Grace rebelled because she was trying to get away from the problems that occurred to her. She wanted to escape the pain, and to do this she completely changed her personality.  Failing in school, sneaking out, and lying to her parents...Grace wasn't sure what to do anymore; she just knew that she had gotten away from the problems.

Her brother dying wasn't the only thing that caused problems.  After her personality change, problems arose from that. She lost her old friends, because she made new ones.  She started to drink, go to parties and illegally buy alcohol -- because this was the new Grace.  She lost her head in all this, all because her brother died.

Saving Grace isn't the only book that uses a cause and effect structure.  There are many books that use this as a way to express the lesson.  Thirteen Reasons Why explains this perfectly.  Every reason is an effect of the previous one, a never ending chain.  Everything in the book leads after the first action.  Both books have a great lesson, telling us that many things can occur after one small issue.

In life, things happen.  Problems arise, people change, and things we do have effects. Every single thing you do or say has an effect.  Some are bigger or more important, but still caused by the thing you did. One thing leads to the next, and before you know it, you've completely changed.