“This taste that felt like diving into a dream flower and coming out on the other side, into the startling sweetness of reality” (207). In Laura Resau’s novel Red Glass, the reader learns that Sophie (the main character) and her family adopt Pablo (an orphan found in the desert). Once Pablo’s family is located in a remote Mexican village, Sophie, her Great aunt Dika, Mr. Lorenzo (Dika’s boyfriend) and Angel (Mr. Lorenzo’s son) embark on a journey to reunite Pablo with his family. The novel recounts their adventures traveling through Mexico and war scarred Guatemala. During the trip, Sophie overcomes many of her fears by stepping outside of her shell. She learns to transform from a shy lonely “amoeba” to “Sophie La Fuerta,” part of a tightly knit “organism.” Readers are drawn to the main character Sophie as she gains confidence, learns important life lessons, and falls in love.
Being so different from everybody Sophie gets loads of attention that she doesn’t know how to handle without being afraid. At the beginning of the book Sophie is definitely not the kind of girl that likes to meet new people. Sophie calls herself an “amoeba” because she feels like an outsider of the whole “organism.” When people approach Sophie many different thoughts start popping into her head that she cannot control. These thoughts that Sophie has control her brain and are making her sick mentally. Sophie has very low self-esteem because she always tells herself bad things. Not only does she have low self-esteem but also a low confidence level in herself. When Sophie, Dika, and Pablo decide to take Pablo back to his family she gets very weary five minutes after they leave, “My stomach tightened, and again, that familiar feeling came, the beginnings of panic---next my heart would race and my breath quicken and my throat dry up”(39). Sophie tends to panic in lots of situations which drive her to not speak. This is a problem because she cannot make friends without