Matthiessen's reading immediately caught my attention. I was drawn to this piece because I am a child of divorce myself. Reading about the difficulties Matthiessen and her family were facing brought back many memories. Like many parents in unhappy marriages, she and her husband were left choosing between happiness for themselves or for their children. As outlined in her piece, the author struggled being torn between two perspectives considering the viewpoint of psychologist Judith Wallerstein and Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling. As described by New York Times author, Denise Grady, Wallerstein studied the negative effects divorce has on children. To do so, she followed the lives of 131 children from 60 divorced families, revealing that about half of the them were still suffering from the divorce as an adult, feeling "worried, underachieving, self-deprecating and sometimes angry. Thus, Wallerstein encouraged "parents to create a fairy tale for children: to keep the nuclear family together, no matter how much ¦it takes to do so" (190) even if that means to be unhappily married. Matthiessen herself had many sleepless nights after considering Psychologist Judith Wallerstein's position but knew that faking happiness wasn't the right approach for her. Nice! Matthiessen felt much more related to the viewpoint of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling. As a single-mother herself, Rowling created a world with dark forces, which allows children to fight and process their fears as they turn the pages of her book (189). Much like in real life, people often don't live happily ever after and one could see how her books may help prepare children for the challenges that await them in the real world. Looking at my own experience, I can confirm that my little universe literally fell apart after my parents separated. However, as the years passed, my sister and I settled into our new family situation and were able to move on with our lives, even though it