Like the Red Panda by Andrea Seigel
"I had some sort of revelation that showed me how arbitrary
the world is, and as soon as I realized that, what was I supposed
to do?”
At seventeen, Stella has everything going for her; she is highly
intelligent and she has been accepted at one of the best colleges
in the country—but the world is not what she had expected it to
be. Stella feels
invisible, alone, and unwanted.
When Stella is only eleven years old, her parents die of a heroine
overdose and Stella finds herself living with
Shana and Simon, who have heavy issues of their own. Instead of loving and nurturing Stella, they pretend as if
she doesn’t exist and appear continually surprised by her
presence.
Stella has a blood-relative still living, her
grandfather, Donald, whom she visits often at the rest home.
Donald is not your
typical grandfather. He has issues of his own, and doesn't
offer Stella what she needs: some sort of normalcy, hope, reassurance, and a reason to live in
an arbitrary, meaningless world.
When Stella meets Ainsley, it’s as if she is meeting herself.
Ainsley is an outsider too and invisible to the outside
world. He is fond of
saying that he could drop off the face of the earth and nobody would
notice.
Isn’t that what we all want in life—to be noticed?
Stella is searching for purpose and meaning, but what she finds is
insignificant, pointless details. “We are like the red panda,” Stella tells
Ainsley.
“She hides behind the leaves all day and very few people
spot her.”
Andrea Siegel's debut novel is a
raw, unnerving novel about a teenager determined to end her
life. Seigel uses black crows throughout the book to symbolize
death. Ironically, it is lost on Stella that even crows have purpose and
meaning; their black bleed against a white sky should remind us
of better days.
About the author: Andrea Seigel was born in California, and
attended Brown University. She currently lives in Los
Angeles. She was only 22 years old when she wrote this novel, her
first. Visit her at her website www.andreaseigel.com.
