Because I Am Furniture

Im reading Because I am Furniture, a book written in verse about a girl who is ignored by her abusive father. He goes around doing horrible things to her older sister and brother, but he completely ignores her. Some might think, well, isn’t that a god thing? I would rather be ignored then abused! Well I guess thats not the way fourteen year old Anke thinks. I guess in a way, Anke has a point. By ignoring her, her father is practically telling her that she isn’t worthy of even the worst sort of attention. The thing is, there are people with normal parents that ignore them anyways. It seems like its a lot better to be given no attention from a crazy man that abuses his children then a perfectly nice man. I mean, Anke's father isn’t nice to her or her siblings, its like no one is worth of the good kind of attention from him. Maybe its just that he thinks that Anke is the most likely of his three children to tell on him. Who knows. I just don’t think it really makes sense that Anke is complaining about not being abused by her father. I bet is she traded places with her older sister, she would realize how mush better it is to be ignored.

Personally, I think it would be a lot more hurtful if I was ignored by a father who loves my two older siblings. In Anke's situation, her father has proven that he is not capable of loving anyone, but Anke takes it personally. I think that by him ignoring her, her father is actually showing that he loves Anke the most. He loves her too much to be able to hurt her the way he hurts the other two. Anke's father is obviously a little off his rocker, and Anke shouldn’t take offense.

A thing about the book that I don’t really understand is why Anke's father is the way he is. She makes references to the way he was when she was young, nice and playful. His change in ways isn’t explained in the book. It seems like he just changed for no reason, but that doesn't happen to people. Anke doesn’t explain a gradual change in her father, she just refers to how he was before, and how he is now. It really doesn’t make sense, and it's not very realistic.