Just Listen

Just listen is a book about a girl named  Annabel. Annabel used to have everything but that soon changed when her friendship with Sophie ended and her sister's eating disorder is getting out of control. She is a shy girl and mostly keeps to herself. But when she meets Owen she learns to  grow and tell something she hasn't really told anyone, the truth.
In the book Just Listen by Sarah Dessen there are  many symbols. But just one of them stood out to me the most. When Whitney (Annabel's sister) is assigned to grow plants a symbol is hidden in there."I walked over to the window to look at the flower pots. The dirt in them was black and fragrant, spotted with fertilizer, and i could see beads of water here and there, glinting in the sunlight. Maybe it was a stupid exercise, and you couldn't grow things in the winter. But there was something i liked about the idea of those seeds, buried so deep, having at least a chance to emerge. Even if you couldn't see it beneath the surface, molecules were bonding, energy pushing up slowly, as something worked so hard all alone, to grow." I think that the plant in this is Annabel. Annabel is the plant who is going to grow and develop. But in Annabel's case stand up to Sophie and tell her what really happened that night. Just like a plant grows slowly and step by step that is how she is going to grow and become stronger as a person to stand up to Sophie. Annabel does starts off as a seed, hiding from everything but not fully protected from everything that is going on outside from her shell.
This symbol does not only speak to Annabel but to everyone. A lot of people start off shy and through their lifetime and become more social and outgoing. They grow through different experiences. For Annabel meeting Owen helps her grow, with out him she would still be hiding in that shell of hers. At the beginning of the book Annabel was shy she stays like that for quite some time. Almost everyone needs a little push to grow.