Watch Me vs The Getaway List Comparative Analysis

A cute love story with the main character running away from home to her long-awaited best friend who moved away when they were young, or a thrilling tale with one of the main characters, assigned to assassinate the other by a restrictive and power-hungry government, but escapes instead? Even though these are different in every way imaginable, they’re both pleasing in their unique way. The theme of “The Getaway List” is finding your passion, even if it means to defy your parent’s wishes. Riley is an energetic and quirky 18-year-old girl who just graduated from high school and doesn’t have a clue about her future. She goes to New York (without informing her mom) to surprise her childhood best friend, Tom, who also happens to be taking a gap year after High School. Her sudden departure has a huge negative impact on her already rocky relationship with her mom. They end up not speaking to each other for most of the summer. However, Riley finds many ways to distract herself from the fight with her mom by getting a job at the Dear Love Dispatch, going around the city with her new friends, and spending every second she can with Tom. By the end of her time spent there, she rediscovered her love for writing, made many lifelong friends, made up with her mom, and found her happy ending with Tom. Due to her adventures in New York, Riley found herself and her passion for writing. In addition, the feud with her mom helped strengthen their relationship since they both came clean about their feelings which brought them to a mutual understanding. Emma Lord conveys the story with a constant flow of humor, causing me to tear up from laughter every couple of pages. Even though the narrative style says otherwise, the book also includes serious topics such as the secrets her mom hid from her, their falling out, and Tom’s true feelings about New York. I love the way she incorporates these topics into the lively vibe of the book. The theme of “Watch Me” is how it feels to constantly do unspeakable things for the safety of your family. One of the main characters, Rosabelle Wolff, lives in Arc Island, one of the last cities standing from a former empire called the Reestablishment which was overthrown 10 years ago by the New Republic. The Reestablishment was a dictatorial government that claimed to support equal resources for all while leaving its citizens to starve. When it got defeated, the world returned to the way it was before, except for cities like Arc Island, which even the “Great Aaron Warner Anderson” is afraid to penetrate. Rosa’s father was a traitor and her mother died from shock which left Rosa to take care of her younger sister. She was forced to murder innocent people for her next meal. This caused her to form an uneasy alliance with James(the guy she failed to kill) in order to escape the island. She was torn between feeling guilty for leaving her sister behind to people who she knows will torture her and the thrill of being free, or that’s what she thought before they took her to a rehabilitation facility to help her recover from what living at Arc Island had put her through. Spending time with James has caused her to slightly have fun, something she’s never had the privilege of doing before. She starts as a formidable assassin who’s reserved like a tortoise in its shell, seemingly innocent but ends up being a formidable assassin who openly tries to kill people for the sole reason of pissing her off. Even with these… interesting moments, Taherah Mafi still manages to include comicality in the book by making James(the other main character) have an air of playfulness to him which perfectly balances Rosabelle’s stoic manner. The dual perspective ensures a deeper understanding of both of the characters since the readers get to experience both sides of their interactions, helping us piece together exactly how the characters are meant to be. The way a character sees themself could be completely different from the way other characters see them. The author clearly describes the events in the book, helping us picture them in our minds. All in all, even though “Watch Me” and “The Getaway List” have many differences, they are still pleasurable reads, each giving its own exceptional experience to the reader.