What about the novel feels personal to you?

The paperback edition of the novel includes a brief note from the author in which she reveals that the novel's genesis came from a combination of real-life experience with "dangerous relationships" and subsequent research into the Manson girls and other events that coincide with the novel's setting. What about the novel feels personal to you?

The thing about the novel that feels personal to me is that this situation happened in my high school in the early 70's of a young girl and a male teacher falling in love. They did not run away, but all the kids in the small town knew that it was happening. As it turned out, they later married and are still together to this day. Also, the news story just occurred where a teacher kidnapped the young girl and took her to the woods to live. It is a story that happens with frequency.

As a retired high school teacher, we would often see students who were in trouble, at school or at home. Lucy had just lost both her parents in a horrible disaster which, at her age, she would never be able to understand. Iris reached out to these girls, but they needed so much more help. Both Lucy and her sister were taken by this "charming" man, who paid attention to them and made them feel important. We see this often in schools, girls will continue to date abusive boys because they feel wanted and loved. They will respond to the Williams in the world. The schools need to reach out and help these girls.

I was in high school in 1970, so about the same time as this story. William reminded me immediately of a teacher I had who was like no other teacher in our school. He was just out of college and insisted we call him by his first name. The time setting of the story brought back many memories for me, the turbulence, protests, etc.

I graduated in 1976 so it was near the time of the story. There was a girl in my high school that ended up marrying one of the teachers before she even graduated. He left to teach at another school. I don't know how their marriage worked out, as I wasn't close to the girl. I just recall everyone being quite schocked!

I was once upon a time a high school teacher, and I had a colleague who admittedly was drawn to one of her students. Later in life, she connected with that student on a very personal level. I have read so many articles in the news recently that relate this sort of thing happening, and I find it difficult to believe or imagine - but it does - and this is the aspect of the novel that feels most personal to me.

I am also a 81 year old widow so I enjoyed reading about the romance between Joe and Iris.

I grew up in the same time period as Lucy and Charlotte and a lot of the things that were going on during that time period in the book brought me back to my own experiences. I can remember reading about the Manson murders and being captivated by it, wondering how a man could exert so much influence over people to make them murder for him.

It did not feel personal to me. I was a teenager in the late forties and these things did not seem to happen then. A lot of us had " crushes" on our teachers as well as movie stars, but it did not cause us to act out on these feelings.

What felt personal to me was how Iris made her plans and then fate changed them at every turn. At times, when I plan future vacations, home improvements, etc., my husband and I always laugh and wonder what's going to come up and change our plans. We don't stop planning, because sometimes things do work out; however, there have been many times where there are last minute changes due to life intervening!

I can't say that anything about the novel felt particularly personal to me. I was not yet a teenager in the late 60s so that era didn't have much impact on me. Also, I never ran off with one of my teachers. :)

I graduated high school in 1970 and lived very close to Kent State University. Many young girls were experimenting with sex and did not have adults in their lives they could confide in. The early 1970s were turbulent and scary and exciting. I think Ms.Leavitt conveyed the tension of the 70's quite well.