Blog Post #2

Nicolas Blanton

Mat Wenzel

ENC 2135

17 January 2018

Roxane Gay explores her teenage years and the struggles she dealt with in I Once Was Miss America. These struggles mainly centered around the fact that she was different from the rest of the people that attended her school. Other than her brother she was the only black student. This brought about teasing and hazing about her appearance, the way she dressed, and the way her parents talked.

Gay deals with these issues by diving deep into the world of Sweet Valley High. Her reality is unsubstantial, but she found one she can live in through her books. The art of escapism is very powerful, and Roxane utilized it to its full potential. Not being friends with the popular kids and not going to parties and being chased by cute guys was the sad but truthful life that she lived but she was able to have anything and everything she could ever desire by indulging in these books.

Sweet Valley Confidential was even more insane and unfathomably desirable because it took the dramatic lives of those perfect little teens with there perfect little lives and flipped them upside down. That is what the real world can do to you. The age difference the original series and the new one allowed for the reinvention of stale characters and an increase in absurdity for others. Roxane and many other girls reading the series enjoyed it thoroughly and Roxanne specifically exploited these literary works to yet again escape from the reality that she deemed inadequate and this made her feel like one of the popular girls, and that’s all she ever wanted.