Who do you think you are? (pgs 101-145)

Summary
Alyse, her mom, and her two sisters attended a bar mitzvah that her father's family were hosting. Alyse and her sisters had a wonderful time, but when the time came for them to get home Alyse's mom had to figure out who she was going to get a ride with because she couldn't drive. They eventually took a cab, and Alyse's mom misplaced her keys, and they were waiting outside of their apartment until three in the morning. It was at this night that Alyse made a promise to herself that she would never rely on anyone else like her mother. However, even though Alyse doesn't want to be like her mom, she still wants to have a close relationship with her. She tries to accomplish this by giving her mom details about what happened to her in school or who her crush is or the mean things people said to her. But rather than give her good advice or console her, her mom just uses those secrets against. Whenever Alyse was being a pain to her, she would say that her attitude is why people say mean things to her. So despite her efforts, their relationship didn't improve. On the contrary, their relationship worsened to the point where they couldn't tolerate each other. One day Alyse came home from her friend's birthday party and her mother was upset because she didn't clean up before she left. Her mother pulled her by the hair and started yelling at her. Alyse let her rage build up inside of her and she pulled out a knife, pointed it towards her mother, and told her that she would kill her. Her mother was shocked and just walked away, later on returning to Alyse in her bedroom telling her that she better pack her things and leave the apartment in fifteen minutes and that if she didn't leave she would call the police. That night Alyse left and spent the night at a neighbor's house and returned to her house the next morning. Over time it became a habit for Alyse and her mom to get into a big argument, and Alyse was supposed to leave the house. Alyse decided that as soon as she could move out of her mother's house that she would. In the fall when she started college, she had two jobs after classes that she loved and kept to save up for an apartment. When she had enough, she finally got an apartment in Manhattan like she wanted.

Quote
"My grandfather, who always recued me after the fights with his daughter when he was alive, was helping me again by giving me a way to escape-even in death." (Myers, 145)

Reaction
I found this quote was a very powerful way of her concluding one of the chapters. After her father dies she talks about how she called her grandfather whenever her and her mom got into a fight. However, Alyse eventually lost him when he died. But I like how the author said that even though her grandfather is dead he's still helping her. She says this because when he died he left her a car that she used to get to her classes, her jobs, and often times get away from her mother. So her grandfather still provided her an escape from the wrath of her mother.