Anastasia Krupnik

In Chapter 8 of Anastasia Krupnik, Anastasia announces “I think love is one of the hardest things in the world to understand” (81). While Anastasia spends the book struggling with multiple emotions, this line perfectly encapsulates Anastasia’s journey toward finding positive ways to cope with the emotions surrounding major events in her life, such as her mother’s pregnancy and her grandmother’s illness. The most prominent way Anastasia does this is through self-reflection, shown by the entries in her green notebook. By making lists of things she likes or dislikes with reasons to back up her claims, Anastasia explores how she feels and why she feels that way—a positive coping technique and a major component to her emotional stability. 

As circumstances change and Anastasia gains new information (such as feeling comforted by her grandmother’s presence at Thanksgiving), Anastasia is forced to rethink the stances she wrote in the green notebook. This process of self-reflection is a manifestation of Anastasia’s growth as a person. In addition, it highlights how Anastasia’s emotions change based on how she understands the world. By comparing her old opinions to her new ones, Anastasia learns to identify her emotions and understand how they affect her.