The books Betty Before X by Renné Watson and The Last Grand Adventure by Rebecca Behrens address some similar and different points for example: power, theme, and perspective. In the book Betty Before X that takes place in Detroit 1945, is about Betty, an unplanned result of a relationship between a teenager, Ollie Mae and a 21-year-old guy, that her grandmother Matilda and aunt took care of, because her mother did terrible things to the baby. But when her grandmother and her auntie passed away, Betty needed to live at Ollie Mae’s home with her stepfather. She suffers rejection a lot, only because is not an unplanned child. In the book Last Grand Adventure takes place in 1967 San Francisco, which is about Bea, an eleven-year-old girl who her mother remarried with another man, and she needs to live at her grandmother’s house Peggy who is so adventurous and kind of funny. But one year ago, her sister Amellie disappeared, which generated concern for one year, until Bea and Peggy started to follow the clues and see how to start the search to find her.
Readers understand some similarities, both girls, Bea and Betty, felt rejected by their parents and had the love and support from their grandmothers who cared and loved them unconditionally, and this support resulted in strong, determined, courageous girls that want to change the world for the better. In Betty Before X, Betty suffers a lot of racism from society, even passing in Detroit at the end of the second world war, which caused a lot of pain and lack of basic needs, she did not let these difficulties get in the way of her faith and dreams, and always look at her wish to change the world with her best friends each one encouraged another, which was very good for Betty’s development throughout the book. In The Last Grand Adventure, Bea ‘s parents ended their relationship which made her very sad and afraid of losing the relationship she had with both of them. The break up results in Bea living with her unknown grandma. At first, Bea didn’t like Peggy’s way very much, but then they liked each other and saw that they had in common the desire to live many adventures and solve many mysteries, for example the disappearance of Amelie, Peggy’s sister who disappeared a year ago and only sent letters saying that she was fine and that she couldn’t share much information.
Betty Before X is more focused to bring to the reader the idea of how one rejected child felt and how it can affect the child’s psychology and show how one child can make the difference in the world because when Betty growed up, she became a big part of the black lives matter movement. In Betty’s book is more focusing in one idea to say how one family not present brings gaps within a child who had to mature very early, and understand that the reality she lived was not having a father present, a mother who was physically and psychologically abusive, and the only support she had was her died grandmother, is a early maturation shown throughout the book. Betty’s story is more painful than the Last Grand Adventure, but she finally has a happy ending, which is that she was adopted by more wonderful people who give her all the support possible. Last Adventure is one story more focused on Girl Power because Bea and her grandmother are two strong and brave girls, but at the same time so sentimental and protective with who they love, as shown in the book, Peggy felt a lot of concern for her sister, and Bea took this story very seriously, doing everything to find her and know where to find her. The reader can learn in both stories to never give up on your dreams and don’t care about what people think about.
The perspective of Betty and Bea, despite being the same age more or less, both girls have one different perspectives from another, Betty came from a lot of suffering and the situation got better in the course of the book, so the perspective was more of fear and that for a few moments ( even rare ) don’t believing in your dreams. In Bea’s perspective is more braver and compared to Betty’s suffering is minor, she didn’t have the same reality that Betty, because the proposals of each book are different, one is to show one girl more brave and a book without a lot of suffer than Betty Before X that bring criticizes the society of the time that still serves ours today. Bea’s perspective is more concentrated in try and think in big and long adventures, showing in the elapse of the book, when Betty gets more close to Peggy.
In conclusion, Betty Before X is a book more focused on one lesson about family issues, Last Grand Adventure is more focused on Girl Power. Both books have similar themes and power, but have different perspectives. Both girls have a lot of courage and have a maturation during the book, which was inspiring and brought good themes.
