Through Her Eyes

Through Her Eyes by Keshia LaVett

ALEXANDRA HOPE NIELSON, known to all as Hope, and affectionately by her family as Moon, is beautiful, vibrant, ambitious, and legally blind. She has never clearly seen the world. From birth until seventeen, she never had a boyfriend or attended a teen party. Even though Hope has never ventured outside of the Stone Community without supervision, that doesn't mean she does not yearn to do so. Especially since she is now a young adult, and attends the University of the District of Columbia. College is slowly opening her eyes to the world. She sees the dark shadows of injustice and the budding possibilities of love. Hope knows there is more to life beyond Stone Community, the middle-class housing development she has lived in with her parents, two little brothers, and best friend for as long as she could remember.

Hope is an activist and an aspiring writer who desires to do what many writers do; share a compelling tale. She wants to discover and relay her own story but feels she has no remarkable experiences to share. Overwhelming frustration due to repeated writer's block, coupled with her sheltered environment has created a barricade that Hope eventually decides to tear down. With her growing wish to leave a footprint on society, and with her best friend, ANGEL, coercing her, Hope finally branches out, but is met with a brutal and daunting reality about the world and her place within it.

During the height of the Rodney King verdict controversy, Hope attends her first anti-racism rally without her parents' approval and is gravely injured. Instead of giving up and retreating back to her sheltered life, this frightening circumstance further propels Hope's craving to belong.