The Magic Hour Summary

Since the last time I have journaled I have finished Magic hour by Kristin Hannah and Just Listen by Sarah Dessen. Magic Hour is about a feral child who was found in the small town of Rain Valley. It follows the police chief, Ellie, and her sister, Julia, while they try to figure out how to help this child. Julia is a psychiatrist who is working to get the girl to speak, while Ellie is trying to find whom the girl belongs to. Just Listen is about Annabel, the youngest sister of three in the Greene family. The family seems like they have a perfect life. The girls all model, Annabel is popular at school, they live in the perfect neighborhood, and they appear to everyone like the perfect family. The reader quickly discovers that this is not the

case, though. Between drama at school and an eating disorder that impacts the entire family, Annabel loses all her friends and starts to hold everything in. In my journal I will be evaluating and showing the emotions felt during The Magic Hour, along with connecting Just Listen.
The Magic Hour ended in a way that pleased everyone.

The father of the girl, now called Alice, came forward and proved that she was his. This was a problem, though, because Julia was already going through the adoption process and connecting even more with Alice. To make matters worse, Ellie got a lead on the investigation of Alice’s case and discovered the cabin where she was kept. The cabin was closed off in the woods, with two ropes on opposite sides where Alice and her mother spent years tied up. Alice’s mother died before Alice got away, and everyone was horrified with what they saw: “’Jesus’ He said, his face pale, his moth trembling. ‘Someone tied her up like a damned dog? How-‘ ‘Don’t-‘ Ellie could feel the tears streaking down her cheeks; it was unprofessional, but inevitable” (Hannah 354). When Alice’s father came to take her back with him, she started to retreat back to her old ways; hiding, not speaking, and making animal noises instead of using her words. It seemed that all progress that Julia made with the girl would be lost if the two were separated. Alice’s father took her and started driving back to his home when she started freaking out. No one could calm her down except Julia, so in the end her father gave up custody: “’She went… Crazy. Howling. Growling. She scratched her face…” (Hannah 385). She needed Julia and Julia needed her, and in the end things worked out perfectly. I really enjoyed how this book was fiction but seemed like a true story. Kristin

Hannah did extensive amounts of research to write this novel, and it shows through her writing. There are very few cases of feral children, so for Hannah to be able to get enough details from those cases to write a novel is impressive. The author made the reader fall in love with Alice throughout the book, and I think that is something not a lot of authors can do.
There are many different emotions felt throughout The Magic Hour. Due to the switching of perspectives from Alice to the people who were helping her, the reader is shown a huge variety of emotions. When the story is written from Alice’s point of view, you can see how scared she is at the beginning. She thinks that everyone is going to hurt her, and that there is no good in the world. Over time you can see her connect and form a bond with Julia, or jewlee as Alice calls her, and become less scared. Likewise, Julia is broken when she first gets called to help Alice. She was trying to help a teenager, but she wasn’t fast enough and the girl ended up killing three people then committing suicide. Julia blamed herself for these deaths; she thought that she should have caught it during one of their sessions together, but didn’t. She shut down and stopped working for fear that she was going to mess up again, so when her sister called asking for her help, it was exactly what she needed. Her success with Alice is what Julia needed to turn her life around, and in the end you can see pure happiness when the author describes Julia. Alice also saved Ellie. Unlike her sister who was afraid to connect with people, Ellie connected too much. With two failed marriages, she gave up on love. Throughout her journey with Alice and her sister, Ellie stopped searching for love, and eventually realized that it was right in front of her. I have also been connecting while reading Just Listen.
I have been connecting the main character in Just Listen, Annabel, to myself.

Throughout the entire novel Annabel shows that she keeps everything in. She has a secret that she cannot get herself to tell to anyone; “The worst part was that I had things I wanted to tell my mother… She'd been through too much…I could not add to the weight… I did my best to balance it out, bit by bit, word by word, story by story, even if none of them were true” (Hannah 106). Although I don’t have a big secret that I’m keeping in, I can relate to Annabel. I have trouble opening up to people. I feel like if I tell people things that are bothering me it will just burden them, so instead I keep everything in. Similar to Annabel, I know this isn’t the right way to deal with things, but I still can’t seem to get myself to change it. In the end of the book Annabel figures out how to deal with her secret, and eventually tells her boyfriend and family. I am also connecting Annabel’s boyfriend, Owen, to one of my friends. When Annabel was popular and had all her other friends, she thought Owen was a loner. He always had headphones in, he didn’t hang out with anyone, and he had been to jail in the past. She judged him based on those things and never got to know the real him. When she lost all her friends over the summer, she started sitting at the same table as him because everyone else hated her. She eventually learned the real him and realized that she was too quick to judge. I have also had a similar

situation as this with my friend Abby. We met in 5th grade because we were the two kids in the class who had no friends. Because of this, we started to talk and I realized that my initial judgment of her as the nerdy, weird girl were wrong. Today, she is still my best friend and I am so glad we got to know each other back in 5th grade.
Overall I really enjoyed these two books. Just Listen ended a little cliché, but other than the ending I enjoyed it. I think I deserve a 9.5 out of 10 because I proofread my paper and included quotes.