Reader Response Exp.

Poojitha Tanjore 

Ms. Asuncion  

English 9H 

February 3 2016 

"Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock" Reader Response 

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock, By Matthew Quick, is quite possibly one of the most important and influential books of this generation. Leonard, a neurotic and impulsive high schooler, brings the reader along on a day in which he plans to kill an enemy in his school, and later himself. Calling this adventure a murder-suicide, Leonard shows us the heartfelt, raw point of view of a boy in severe need of help. Matthew Quick creates a compelling main character who speaks to many peoples deepest fears and scariest thoughts. Not only does Matthew Quick write in manner that reaches all five senses, he writes in a way that creates an immediate need to evaluate priorities, he urges the reader to be kind, and he truly allows the reader to understand a character that is incredibly unique whilst never creating a disconnect.  

“Don’t do it. Don’t go to that job you hate. Do something you love today. Ride a roller coaster. Swim in the ocean naked. Go to the airport and get on the next flight to anywhere just for the fun of it. Maybe stop a spinning globe with your finger and then plan a trip to that very spot; even if it’s in the middle of the ocean you can go by boat. Eat some type of ethnic food you've never even heard of. Stop a stranger and ask her to explain her greatest fears and her secret hopes and aspirations in detail and then tell her you care because she is a human being." Forgive Me, will leave you with the dilemma of whether to rapidly put the book down to reevaluate your personal routine, or read till the end for this book for is so captivatingly written. Personally, I solved this problem by reading at a speed faster than most cars and later changing everything about my daily life. This book keeps you mouthing the word, "Wow," due to its ability to wake you up. Before reading this book, I felt as if I had previously been in a coma, disconnected with the rest of the world. After finishing, I felt as if Matthew Quick's words had grabbed my shoulders and shaken me awake. Once I had "awoken," all of my senses were heightened. I immediately felt everything on a level so extreme that my only choice was to do what made me happy. I went through my extracurricular decisions as well as my past times and prioritized. I picked new songs on the piano, chose to teach different subjects, and picked up more extracurricular activities that made me happy, rather than ones I did with no passion. 

Leonard Peacock is a rather emotionless person. He is emotionless in a way that makes the reader feel all of his emotions for him. There are certain moments in the story, however, in which Leonard feels something. Not enough to call him emotional, never enough happiness to call him happy, but just enough emotion to know that he can and wants to be saved. Often times, the pea sized amount of emotion that he shows are at times when he realizes that maybe, just maybe, the world is worth living in.  His desire to end his life comes from the more common thought that the world is not a place worth living in. He believes that the world is so terrible, that the fact that it does not want him, makes him even more worthless.  Leonard hides his sadness so well that the people in his world do not think of him as suicidal and so they do not care for him. His problems are considered too small to care about. Moments in which Leonard thinks thoughts such as, “Like maybe he really, truly believes I'm worth listening to, worth saving," or hears words such as "People should be nice to you, Leonard. You're a human being. You should expect people to be nice," in response to his inability to believe in anything good, truly reminds readers to be kind to everyone (Quick 104). This book really emphasizes the need to validate problems early in order to stop them from snowballing into something near unstoppable. Readers learn that regardless of what you think people are or aren't going through, it is crucial to be considerate and kind. 

Leonard's life teeters between moments of beauty and moments of immense and utterly unstoppable pain. Within this teenage boy is a monster from a popup book. Within this boy is also raindrops and smiles that find motivation to show themselves from quite literally no emotion. This book is the story of one day, step by step, emotion by emotion. With complete grace, Mathew Quick shows the stages of happiness being taken away, to sadness, to emotion as bland as staring at a cinderblock wall in isolation. “We can simultaneously be human and monster—that both of those possibilities are in all of us.”(Quick 116). These words are half whispered by Leonard's English teacher who proves to be one of the most significant characters in the pages of this novel. Every beautifully written sentence in this book is obvious truth while also being undetected. It as if each lesson learnt throughout this story is like your nose; you know it is there but your brain has normalized it so much that you no longer notice it. Each lesson in this story is information that we all know. Leonard poses to be so different and unique but the reader must know that he is much like the rest of us.  Leonard sees the world in a way in the honest way that we all used to, but now disregard due to the continuous speed and routine of our lives.  

“Because you start a revolution one decision at a time, with each breath you take.” This book is the decision that I made as a devoted reader that will start my personal revolution. With each word and each page I felt myself grow as a reader and as a person. Mathew Quick has truly created a masterpiece through this book, conveying emotions that I didn’t know existed. At one point Leonard utters my favorite quote from the whole book, “Can't it just exist without an explanation? Why do we have to assign meaning to art? Do we need to understand everything? Maybe it exists to evoke feelings and emotions -- period. Not to mean something.” (Quick 256).  Although this book had so much purpose and meaning, I would like to believe that is the type of art that just exists in order to evoke feelings and emotions -- period.