The Kids Are All Right by Amanda, Liz, Dan, and Diana Welch | Teen Ink

The Kids Are All Right by Amanda, Liz, Dan, and Diana Welch

May 31, 2010
By Anonymous

Written by four siblings, The Kids Are All Right is an enthralling novel that recounts the lives of the Welch family. Their story is both inspiring and devastating, and each step of their lives provides a different perspective on the inseparable love that the siblings have for each other.

There are four children in the Welch family: Amanda, Liz, Dan, and Diana, and each contribute their accounts to form a single, intertwined story of survival in the harsh realities of growing up as orphans. Initially, the children live a pleasant life, but the abrupt death of their father and a malignant tumor which ends the life of their mother leave the children with a seemingly bare and bleak future. Still, their tragic beginnings only make the love and relationships of the siblings stronger, even as each separate to experience their own lives.
Amanda and Dan both share the difficulties of adjusting to their new life, and their actions and behaviors reflect that of a typical teenager who desires freedom and adventure. Amanda’s rebellious and independent life comes to a screeching halt when she decides to take up a job working in a farm, leaving behind her past and piecing together her new future as she settles in the farm with her husband and her innumerous animals. Dan finds himself lost and in search for his true identity after losing his parents and being separated from his siblings. Desperate for help, he reconciles himself with his sisters, and understanding their love and support for him, gradually begins to find his place in life as he enters college. Like Amanda, Dan begins a new chapter in his life, ready to move on from his past.

Liz and Diana share their own accounts as each embark on their set of adventures. Liz, though accepted to several colleges, chooses to take a year off as she travels to Norway to explore the world. Even with her independence and travels, or rather because of it, she finds herself closer to her siblings, supporting them and being supported by them. Diana, the youngest of the four, utterly resents her new family. Her struggles to fit in with another family convey the strong and inseparable love and relationship she already has with her own family: Amanda, Liz, and Dan. Together, all four siblings learn the importance of being together for each other as each undergoes their own struggles in life.

This book is ingeniously crafted with each of the four siblings telling their stories in separate chapters. Their lives, though told from different perspectives, are beautifully woven together to create a cohesive novel that will touch the heart of every reader and inspire them like the Welch siblings have inspired me.



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