Adrian Huerta

English in Literature
Professor Lago
March 11, 2014
Journal 8
After reading The Love of My Life, I was completely shocked. Coraghessan did a
fantastic job at completely twisting the story around and changing the mood of the story. In the
beginning of the story, it seemed that everything was perfect between China and Jeremy and
nothing could stand in the way of their true love. I thought it was going to be like any other love
story with two possible outcomes. One outcome would be that they kept the baby and they lived
happily ever after because some miracle happened and their parents helped them take care of the
baby while they finished college. Or they would abort the baby and still have a happy life
together. Either way, I assumed it was going to have a happy ending. However, as the story
unfolds, the author transitions the mood to a more hostile and foreshadowing background that
eventually leads to the assumption that someone is going to backstab the other. When Jeremy
found out that the love of his life was going to testify against him for the crime that they both
committed, it left me speechless. From the authors description of the couple, that was the last
thing I would have expected from either one of them.
After reading this short story, I was a little confused as why Jeremy was ultimately
responsible for the death of the child. How could she blame him for something that was not his
fault? I agree with Jeremy that the death of the child should stay between both him and China
since it is their child but Jeremy was just being humble about the severity of the crime. In my
opinion it was China who should be responsible. If Jeremy would have done what he wanted, the
baby would have been aborted and this would have been avoided. But no, China wanted to go
through with it and Jeremy just followed her commands because he was in love. Any guy in love
would easily follow their lovers command. China should have avoided carrying the baby for
nine months and suffering the symptoms and punishments a mother undergoes through
childbearing. Obviously she was not ready to be a mother because she was still immature and to
selfish to realize how difficult it was to be a mom. Because of her immature actions, she ruined
both their lives because the accidental death of their newborn branded them as criminals. From
my point of view, this was all a tragic misunderstanding. After all, which two honor students
with a great life ahead of them would throw all that away to get locked up, especially for the
death of not just another human being but their son?