A Book by Alissa DeRogatis
Books are more than stories—they take over your being, mapping out the recesses and nooks in (yet of) your mind One of them, Call It What You Want by Alissa DeRogatis, is not a disappointment. It is a story identity, a picture of delicate humanity that words crafted to have the pulsating rhythm of a heartbeat. It is lush with feeling on every page, gorgeously wrought universe where characters are looking for the book of love and more than that themselves around each corner.
Or A Quiet Longing For Unanswered Questions
Call It What You Want is at its heart a story about identity and reinvention – How we shape ourselves, What holds us back or helps us grow, And what makes us who we are. This is a novel that reads like someone in a cornter of party, whispering secrets; whose emotions are almost delicate in their strength. These are not heroes or villains, but humans on the brink of themselves, questioning things that cannot easily be answered. What does it mean to be seen? What do we call ourselves when it tells us to answer to another name.
Excerpt: Identity Crisis — Or, So What If I Am Here? [Part 2]
Violet, the novel’s protagonist, drifts through the archipelago of expectations, lost in its winding paths. Torn between the life she is told to live and the one her heart quietly yearns for, she stands at a crossroads. In her hands lies the fragile choice—to follow her own truth or surrender to what others demand, all while guarding the fragile pieces of herself that still remain intact.
Violet lives in muted tones — a world of silent despair and soul-crushing sameness, where each day is another door to open onto someone else. She herself has a dread feeling (that she is worked by the desire for others, that that name isn’t hers). Her fight will resonate with anyone who has felt stifled in the role prescribed to them by birthplace, culture, or fate.
The Burden of Expectations: Invisible Bars of a Prison
The weight of expectations lingers as one of the novel’s most heart-wrenching themes. Violet still feels bound by the invisible chains of what the world demands of her—as a daughter, a lover, and simply as a soul navigating life. These unspoken pressures grip her, pulling her in directions she never chose, yet cannot escape.
Love as a Mirror and a Maze
However, in Call It What You Want love is not only limited to romantic relationship. This is a love story — our souls are exceptionally good at breaking us down slowly and dragging us under until it rubs all the vultures clean of bones inside — It’s about self-love, the type that you get from other people, and how much that love holds us back from or pushes us forward into ourselves. In Violet’s case, her relationships with her friends and closest allies become battlegrounds for these questions. Someone has to see all of you for you to be fully loved. Is there a place for love without insecurity
Purging the Past: The Agony of Transformation
Violet’s journey is a testament to the fact that becoming is not easy. It is messy and painful, slamming down cold against our raw selves. She needs to strip down her old skin and wise up, show the end of this eternal masquerade. There are wounds from this shedding. The story also never diminishes the emotional toll of expansion; it portrays development as something that is wildly, tortuously both— breathtaking and heartbreaking.
Violet takes a long time to turn out like the dawn flower. This is not a clean, linear arc but an erratic highway littered with mistakes and insights. Violet sometimes wonders if she will ever find her way to become the person she is, or whether she will stay lost in other’s labrynths of wished expectations.
Silence: What Is Not Said
One of the book’s more powerful aspects is the silence. DeRogatis is great at Silence. There is so much more in-between the words spoken, to the people around her and to Violet herself. Violet fears and desires most land in these silences.
These unsaid moments are the emotional subtext of her book. These silences tell the story of how we present ourselves to the world, while quietly holding our deepest truths in our hearts. For Violet, they serve as both sanctuary and prison. They offer her safety and protection, yet confine her, keeping her from fully embracing the richness of life beyond her fears.
The Complication Of Human Hopes
Call It What You WantCrave, a concept that is not as simple as it seems. It is an intricate web — a confusing knot of fear and guilt, hope and longing. Violet wants to be free, but is terrified about what freedom would cost her. But with a desperate longing for love, so afraid that she would disappear in it. Laughlin: That complexity is what makes her such a relatable character. Far from perfect, she never does and hardly ever wants to be. But that is the beauty of her journey, it is as real and raw as a deeply human.
The Art of Self-Discovery
Violet’s story is one of self discovery, but it is not heading towards a destination. Call It What You Want proposes that self-discovery is not about finding an ultimate answer — it simply begins when one starts asking the right questions. Violet realizes that she could still be whole even without all the answers. And in the asking, and the wondering…she finds herself.
Mind Over Muggles: Call it what you want
Call It What You Want by way of its title directly reflects the main story287ausible idea. Interestingly, it challenges the status quo of things we categorise — and makes us think. What exactly is naming? To define it? Violet fights against the names others have given her throughout the book–daughter, lover, disappointment, success. Ultimately, it is she herself who learns that the name which matters most is the one she gives to herself.
So despite the dark story, END OF SUMMER is not a depressing book but one with more than enough tender truths for any reader.
Conclusion: A Novel of Tender Truths
In “Call It What You Want ,” Alissa DeRogatis doesn’t just tell a story; she holds up a mirror, reflecting the delicate, messy, and dazzling journey of coming of age. Violet’s story is a reminder that it’s okay to be uncertain, to live in discord, and to choose a life that feels true, not one shaped by society’s expectations.
DeRogatis writes with a poet’s touch, her words both a gentle whisper and a scream from the soul. Call It What You Want speaks to anyone who has ever felt out of place, anyone longing to break free from labels and discover what it means to be truly authentic.
FAQs
1. What is the main idea of Call It What You Want?
Identity and self-discovery are central to the novel, as well as opposition between societal expectations or demands versus personal desires.
2. What character is the main character in this story?
At the center of this mystery is Violet, a woman who continuously gets in her own way when it comes to letting out her soft core and showing off her rough exterior.
3. So, where does the emotional weight come in??
DeRogatis writes with heart and soul, and sets an emotional tone that is consistently maintained throughout a connective arc within Violet.
4. Call It What You Want: Is This A Love Story?
It is a love story, but not quite what usually comes to mind when one hears the phrase romance. It becomes less of a love story and more about self-love and discovering who one truly is.
5. The title… Call It What You Want.
The title is a reminder of the novel’s underlying message about the volatility of identity and reclamation of one’s own name, rather than being defined by it.