Stitch Themes: Finding Balance
Balance can be a difficult thing to achieve, and no one knows that better than Alessa, the main character of Stitch. In most respects Alessa is a perfectly normal college girl, but sometimes it seems like her life is stuck on a pendulum that’sconstantly swinging back and forth to the most extreme degree. So learning to cope with the dynamic world she lives in, and finding balance in her own character, will be some of her biggest struggles both in Stitch and throughout the Stitch trilogy.
When you meet Alessa, she’s just starting her first year of college at a big state university where she feels like nothing but a number. She’s struggling to fit in with the bubbly, upbeat girls in her sorority house and her schoolwork sometimes feels like an avalanche that she can’t quite seem to dig her way out from under. She’s trying to claw her way out of a depression, but things are looking bleaker and bleaker for her every day.
But things weren’t always this way for Alessa. In high school, she was an all-star student. Stellar grades, a resume of extracurricular a mile long, and high hopes of getting into a prestigious college. She was someone in her high school, someone with prospects and every chance of achieving her dreams. But then her parents died in a tragic accident, and everything just fell apart.
So here Alessa is, in her first year of school trying to put the pieces back together and get her life back to some semblance of normal. And then she starts seeing the ghost. The ghost turns her life upside-down along a different spectrum. Suddenly Alessa’s questioning everything she ever believed about science and myths, and wondering how much is going on in this world that she never thought possible. On top of that, every sighting of the ghost sends her emotions into overdrive – she can’t move, can’t think, can only feel this intense rush of sorrow and pain and inexplicable allure – and then when it’s over she’s numb, just utterly exhausted and dead inside.
It seems that no matter what Alessa does, she can’t seem to find a happy medium. She lets loose at party and has a fabulous time, until it all comes crashing down and she finds herself sprawled across her bedroom floor, desperate for answers that she doesn’t have the power to find. She goes to bed early some nights to give her drained body some rest, and instead she wakes up at 3 in the morning in a cold sweat, still reeling from eerily lifelike nightmares featuring none other than her ghostly obsession.
It begins to seem that things couldn’t possibly get worse for Alessa – and then a close friend drops a bombshell that shatters everything she ever believed about her life. Now she’s in real danger, every move a question of life or death, and she doesn’t know if she has it in her to make it through intact. But the more Alessa thinks about what happened to her, the angrier she becomes, to the point that her rage blinds her to caution. She makes mistakes, and over the course of the series, she pays for them, dearly.
Balance is not an easy thing for any of us to achieve. The world around us is constantly shifting under our feet, making us question who we are and what we’re capable of. And unfortunately for Alessa, no one’s world is less secure than hers. She’s waging a battle inside and out to come to terms with the realities she’s facing, and to reconcile her own ability to affect the outcomes. If she can find a balance between optimism and despair, caution and impudence, revenge and mercy, she may make it out alive. But if she can’t, she’ll lose everything – and everyone – she ever loved.
Check out book one of the Stitch trilogy today to follow Alessa on the beginning of her journey! Available now at Amazon,Barnes& Noble, and Smashwords in print and e-book formats starting at only $2.99. Keep up with the Stitch Blog Tour all month long for giveaways, author interviews, and guest appearances from Stitch characters! Full schedule available here.
