This Is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn
This Is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn is a young adult novel by British author Aidan Chambers, and is the last installment in a book series called The Dance Sequence. Each book in this series is a different view on the Coming of Age Story through the eyes of, for the most part, rather intellectual teenagers, and can be read together with the others, or on its own as a stand alone novel. This book is about Cordelia Kenn, an expecting mother 19 years of age, who is putting together all her "pillow books", journals in which she's written questionable poetry, treatises on things from masturbation to revision, and her most deepest thoughts, all for her daughter to read when she's 18.
Tropes used in This Is All: The Pillow Book of Cordelia Kenn include:
- Anyone Can Die: Cordelia herself.
- Cool Teacher: Julie doubles as this and The Mentor to Cordelia.
- Coming of Age Story
- Diary: One begins to wonder how Cordelia managed to remember all that happened to her over the years, and record it in a diary.
- Education Mama: Mrs. Blacklin has shades of this.
- Missing Mom: Cordelia's mum dies when she's 6.
- Rape as Drama
- Romantic Runner-Up: Doris. George ended up marrying Cordelia's mom after they broke up, but... Doris and George end up marrying each other halfway into the Green Pillow Box.
- Settle for Sibling: George does this when he and Doris break it off.
- The Stoic: For the most part, Will.
- William Shakespeare: Cordelia affectionately refers to him as "Shakes."
- Your Cheating Heart: Cordelia is guilty of this when Will goes off to tree college.