Just Listen Character Analysis

The book Just Listen is revolved around Annabel Greene, the girl who was known to have everything; friends, popularity, and the ideal family. She like her two older sisters, Kristen and Whitney, was a model. Annabel participated in several local ads and commercials. She was the idol of many young girls. In everyone's eyes Annabel was living a perfect life, however, that was not the case.

Annabel’s family was an emotional wreck after the discovery of Whitney’s eating disorder. After the death of Annabel’s grandmother, her mother went into a deep depression. When her mom finally got better, everyone looked at her as a fragile person, someone who could break with any type of bad news. This is why when she got raped by Will Cash, she kept it

One was the importance of honesty. Annabel was always keeping her emotions to herself to avoid her friends or family from getting hurt. When Annabel wanted to quit modeling she felt like she couldn’t tell her mom. Modeling became an important aspect of her mother's life, and she couldn’t take that away from her. After the death of her grandmother, her mother went into a deep depression, so Annabel tried to avoid hurting her mother’s feeling as much as she could. Annabel told many white lies. Whenever anyone asked her how she was, she would respond “I’m fine”, even if she wasn’t. Annabel never spoke up about what actually happened between her and Will, which made everyone assume an idea that was not true. When Emily was raped by Will, she immediately reported him to the authorities. In contrast, many people felt sympathy toward Emily, her image and reputation was intact. If Annabel would have been honest to her friends and family about what happened, she would have avoided all the rumors that were spread about her in school. The second theme that was shown was the vast difference between appearances and reality. Part of Annabels house was made of glass. People who were driving by would look inside and see a “perfect” family. Appearances can often be misleading on what actually is on the inside. People observing from the outside could not see the suffering the family was going through with Whitney’s eating disorder.