Book Club Part II

At least this time, I know I'm not repeating myself. I haven't even thought about this book in over ten years. But it had a profound effect on how I saw myself as a child.

There was actually an entire series of books about Anastasia. My mother found the first one on a bookstore visit that was a desperate attempt to get me interested in reading something when I was about eight.

Anastasia was a ten or eleven year old girl living in the suburbs of Boston. She was an only child (until her far younger brother came along late in the first book), but other than that we had so much in common.

She was nothing like most of the girls in the books I read up to that point (except my beloved Harriet). She was headstrong and independent and not interested in typically girly things. She bred hamsters and talked to a bust of Sigmund Freud.

She was insecure, but in a way I could relate to much more than that wishy-washy Margaret (Are you there God, it's me, Margaret?) or the sisters in Sweet Valley Twins. I wasn't worried about boys and bras, I was worried about life's bigger questions and so was Anastasia.