Fledgling

So far, I've been very disappointed by this book. The books we have been reading for this class have all been exceptionally well-written, and in my opinion, this one is not. The dialogue is so forced and unbelievable, it makes me feel like I'm in grade school again. Aside from my opinion of its flaws, I have found some themes in this story. One theme I have found is the story's dwelling on the feeling of isolation and forgotten identity. The young girl vampire seems to have lost her family and her whole sense of who she is. She's trying to remember where she came from. I can see this tying to racial issues of African Americans trying to find their own identity in our society, and also trying to identify their roots. Renee claims that "the experimenters" made her black so that she could withstand the sunlight better than those of her kind who are pale (37). I thought this idea of the experimenters was very interesting. They could possibly symbolize "god" or this could be a statement that people with brown skin are superior to those with white skin. I'm hoping to hear more about these experimenters.
Renee and Wright are trying hard to figure out where she came from, and more about her kind. They do all kinds of research, but can't seem to find anything useful. Renee says, "Whoever and whatever I was, no one seemed to be writing about my kind. Perhaps my kind did not want to be written about" (39). I thought this was a very important passage. To me, this was a connection to the opression of African Americans and the supression of the African American voice in our society. Maybe it's not that her "kind" didn't want to be written about, but they were ignored altogether. Renee seems to feel fine with her differences, yet she is aware that her differences have caused something bad to happen in her past.