YMMV / Promise Of A Future

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Are Elinor's motives for helping Kate on her college journey completely pure, or is she using Kate to fill a void in her own soul and prove she is not a carbon copy of her abusive mother? Elinor actually gets called out on this in the book and gets better at recognizing the tendency.
  • Is Kate's Aunt Heather simply overprotective because of what she saw happen to her severely disabled brother or is she a nasty person who simply thinks her niece is not good enough to be with "regular" people?
  • Is Kate's motivation advocacy for other disabled persons, or is it to try to separate herself from the severely disabled?
  • Is Kate's family made up of flawed, normal Christians, or are they all a little bit nuts? Has Kate been parented well or not?
• Iron Woobie: The fact that Kate continues to attend her university without having a complete nervous breakdown, and continue to maintain great grades and social relationships, may qualify her for this. Elinor may qualify as well, considering she's eventually able to face her mother in person and consistently puts her unborn child's health ahead of her temptation to return to full-blown anorexia.
• Jerk Ass Woobie: Vanessa, once readers learn about her Freudian Excuse.
• The Scrappy: Despite the possibility of her being The Woobie, many of McCall's readers have said they actually wanted to kill Vanessa Worthington. Justified in that she's the villain, but McCall has said she didn't mean for that kind of reaction to occur and, given the chance, would probably tone Vanessa down.

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