Christina Aguilera, Demi Lovato, Lady Gaga, Jodee Blanco – all of these ladies have one tragic thing in common: they were victims of bullying. Jodee Blanco pens a powerful memoir about the years she was bullied in school. Her story starts just before her high school reunion, where Blanco is terrified to see the classmates who once physically and emotionally abused her. She flashes back to her childhood where the trouble all began.
“When I was the outcast, I never thought about the other kids who were also getting rejected. I couldn’t see past my own pain.” – Jodee Blanco
From spit in her face to kicks in the shin to snow shoved down her throat, Jodee says she was mercilessly taunted by the kids she desperately wished would be her friends. All Jodee wanted was to be accepted by the in-crowd (“Popularity was all that mattered now.”) but they continuously treated her like trash. According to Blanco, every time she spoke up for “the underdog” – like the deaf students at Holy Ascension Catholic School or Dave, the nerd at Morgan Hills Academy - the popular kids would turn their vicious attacks on her. Blanco claims that reporting the bullying was pointless. When she told her teachers, her classmates called her a tattletale then bullied her even worse. When she told her parents, they blamed her for not trying harder to fit in and sent her to a psychiatrist.
Despite all the abuse, Jodee Blanco survived to become a successful, award-winning publicist. Anyone who has been bullied and can identify with her struggle should read Please Stop Laughing At Me. Bullies (those past and present) should also read this book. Will it make them sympathetic to the victims they’ve hurt? Maybe. There is no denying that bullying is real problem. Maybe the more people know about how the victims feel, the more people will reach out and help them.
For a children's book about bullying, read The English Roses by Madonna (see link below).