The Game (monitoring bookmark)

The Game

By Teresa Toten

Bookmark prompt Check It Out

            I changed my opinion on Dani when she says she “doesn’t like the door” to her room because it was “rude and bossy” (page 9).  At the beginning of the book when I first read of Dani, I did not think she was crazy more than she was just highly intoxicated. But when Dani starts having clearer thoughts and gives her door human characteristics, I start to wonder if she does belong in the mental health unit. My other thoughts were that maybe she was just joking around with herself and being sarcastic. I really question her rationality when even she does too. I also start to wonder why she is even there in the first place. What caused her to become intoxicated? Why?

I thought I’d missed something when Dani and her sister, Kelly, start playing the ‘Game’ (page 14). I wondered how they started playing in the first place. Why would a teenage girl be interested in fighting off evil? When Kelly begins to talk about bringing new people into their ‘Game’ Dani thinks about the ‘lilacs weighing down on her like poured concrete.’ (Page 15). I feel like Dani was also being suffocated by Kelly’s idea of new people in their world.

            I had to ask myself questions about Dani’s father when after several times Dani screams out “Daddy no!” I also wondered why her roommate Scratch would call her a Daddy’s girl (page 26) if she really was resented and was scared of him. I think this was a good way for the author to make you keep reading to know more about Dani’s father. Ask I kept reading I realized maybe Dani wasn’t at all a Daddy’s girl but was only protecting Kelly from him. (Page 43) Scratch also calls Dani’s father psychopathic (page 63) which kind of ties things together. I realized Dani’s father, abusive and ‘crazy’, probably belonged in the mental health care facility more than Dani did.