The Gilded Years
In her piece, Roxane Gay expertly decimates the cookie cutter high school experience and shines light on the harsh reality of racism, bullying, and ostracism. She uncovers this truth through an extended juxtaposition which pins the ideal high school years portrayed in Sweet Valley High, against her own melancholy experience. With her writing, I believe Gay is attempting to speak for the people who never were given the chance to participate in “The Golden Years”. She exposes the realistic parts of high school, the ones that aren’t depicted in movies, the pages torn from Sweet Valley High. As she recalls the ways she was treated and how her peers perceived her, it’s difficult to fathom that the victim of all this hatred was a fourteen-year-old girl. Had Roxane been any less thick-skinned, this could have been a completely different, tragic story. Overall, the piece provides awareness to real life issues that are unfortunately seldom addressed and moreover, offers hope to those in a comparable situation.
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