four: ana's story: a journey of hope

Bush, Jenna. Ana’s Story: A Journey of Hope. New York, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2007. Kindle file.

Annotation

“Life like Ana and take the steps you need to have a safe, optimistic life.” Ana’s life becomes a complete blur with secrets – about her illness, families and the abuse she had to endure. She had moved from home to home, where she had become uncomfortable and rarely found safety. At seventeen, she had fallen in love and becomes pregnant; she embarks on a journey that leads a new beginning, new sorrows and new hope.

Justification for nomination

 Ana’s Story is about Ana who has HIV, transmitted from her mother. At age 10 she was told from her grandma that she had HIV and that she needed to continuously take medication. Throughout her adolescence and young adulthood, Ana struggles to keep her secrets and is told never to tell it to anyone. She must also keep it a secret that her sister died after birth and that her grandmother’s boyfriend had molested her and her sister. Ana never speaks of her illness after seeing how her friends at school reacted and treated others. Even after confessing it to her best friend and mother she didn’t get to stay long and was sent to a center for children that didn’t have a home or was abandoned. Ana later meets a boy and they end up forming a relationship. At age 16, Ana becomes pregnant.

Bush ends the story neither on a good note nor a bad note. She leaves you wanting more and hoping that maybe there might be something more. Published in 2007, we don’t know how she’s been doing and how she’s still enduring her HIV.

Bush retells the story of Ana’s adolescence years and she does an amazing job. There were short chapters that consisted of a few sentences and there were longer chapters. Ana’s Story is a great nonfiction book that makes you wanting to know more. For me, it felt like it came to life, as though I was there, watching her. Though I didn’t experience many difficulties as her, I can see that she had to grow up fast. And to be able to compare to that, I am sometimes amazed at how much faster young adults or adolescences have to grow up because of the struggles they end up facing. It is also a good coming-of-age book that shares with us about her journey she endured and how she overcame it. Though she still has a hard time talking about her HIV, she isn’t afraid to tell it if she has to.

Ana’s Story is a great inspirational book that shows us how others are dealing with AIDs and how important it is that the UNICEF is for helping children like Ana. 

Genre: Nonfiction | Coming-of-Age | Biography | Memoir