Discussion Topic
Summary of Tornado Warning by Elin Stebbins Waldal
Summary:
Tornado Warning by Elin Stebbins Waldal is a memoir that intertwines teenage diary entries with adult reflections to highlight the impact of dating violence. The narrative reveals how young Elin fell for an older, seemingly ideal boyfriend who became abusive, a relationship that left lasting emotional scars. As an adult, Elin reflects on her experiences, aiming to raise awareness about teen dating violence and empower others by sharing her story of survival and resilience.
What is the summary of Tornado Warning by Elin Stebbins Waldal?
Tornado Warning is a memoir about dating violence. The story is told through excerpts of teenage Elin’s diary and reflection from the adult Elin on how the events impacted her life.
At seventeen I met a guy who was older, living on his own, and running his own business. It was the equivalent to winning the dating jackpot. (p. 21)
It was not a jackpot. It did not take long for the relationship to become abusive, but it did take a long time for Elin to recover.
In many ways, Elin was an ordinary teenager before she met Derrick and it changed her life. Derrick was older and handsome.
Ironically, young Elin saw signs of dating violence in the relationship between her friend Becka and her boyfriend Mark, whom Elin described as “a psycho.”
I cannot imagine how Becka put up with him for as long as she did. I...
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guess the night he hauled off and backhanded her woke her up. (p. 21)
As is so often the case, Elin saw the abuse in Becka and Mark’s relationship but did not see it later in hers with Derrick. It is easy to judge other people. It is so hard to see it when it’s you. As the adult Elin thinks when her children can’t believe what she went through, “the incipience is not fully detectable” (p. 12).
The adult Elin comments on what drove her to Derrick and why she did not see the signs.
What began as a thrill later provided a numbing effect from the brutality I was suffering. (p. 24)
The older Elin comments that she became adept at looking like she had it together on the outside when “on the inside the canvas was more like spin art” (p. 25).
Elin did not have an easy life even as an adult. She married and had a girl of her own (and two sons), but she stopped being traumatized by the memories of the violence she suffered. As an adult, Elin remembers and want to help her teenage self, when she was “half in the shadow and half in the light”. She decides to writer her own story, to help other girls. She is “one of the one in three women who have been abused” (p. 11).
What is a summary of the book Tornado Warning by Elin Stebbins Waldal?
Tornado Warningis a diary of a teenage girl whose boyfriend abused her, with reflection by the woman that girl grew up to be.
The story is told partially in diary entries by young Elin, partially in response to those entries by adult Elin. Since we have both the benefit of young Elin’s words and older Elin’s wisdom, we get a unique perspective on what she went through. For example, Elin reflects on the events leading up to her disastrous relationship.
The start of my senior year of high school on many levels was spring fed by a combination of events that made for a perfect storm. (p. 20)
Since she has lived through the events, she is able to see them coming. Yet she is also able to remember the emotions she felt.
In high school, Elin fell in love with an older boy who had a business and was not in high school. The relationship started off well, but soon the boyfriend became jealous and violent.
When Elin was older, she had a difficult time with relationships and her experiences with the abusive boyfriend gave her post-traumatic stress. However, she married a wonderful man and had children, including a daughter.
What is a good summary of the book Tornado Warning?
The book Tornado Warning is about a woman who describes her life as part of an abusive relationship as a teenager and its effect on her life as an adult.
Elin Stebbins Waldal published her teenage diary to bring awareness to teen dating violence.
I should be dead, I think—but I am not. Why have I not told my story? There was a false start in my early twenties when I gave voice to my teenage self by writing about it.
Teenage Elin fell under the spell of an older boy when she moved into a friend’s house away from her family. In the book, she shares her diary entries as well as comments from her adult self.
And that’s when it crept into me…he really can’t kill me…well, he could, but that’s not what I mean. What I mean is, he actually already has, because he’s killed my spirit.
Her purpose is to show how she did not see the warning signs early in the relationship, and she hopes to get a dialog going on teen dating violence.