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Annie John is set on the small Caribbean island of Antigua. Annie John, the narrator of the story, tells her life in eight chapters, all of which tell her coming of age after being told by her mother that she was on the verge of becoming a young lady.

Annie John takes this personally and when she begins school she takes interest in other girls. While going through these relationships, she and her mother put more distance between them. She learns about sex, the infatuation of love and how to be sweet in front of teacher and funny behind their backs while in school even though she was the best student in her class. Her mother barely notices her misdeeds and she is almost able to do whatever she wants. She once admired her mother but begins disliking her throughout the book. Everything she used to like about her as a young child has gone away and turned into a raged disgust. Annie finds a passion in reading and art. She visits the library and has years of past overdue books. While in school she takes a further interest in reading and is once punished for vandalizing at a picture after writing the “great man can no longer get up and go”, {something she heard her mother say} under a picture of  Christopher Columbus in chains. She explored a feeling of hopelessness also after seeing a picture of the young Lucifer, in which he was just kicked out of heaven and had a forced smile, realizing she felt the same way about her life, she began to cry.

This in turn brings her into a deep state of depression and for a few months she is living with despair. Eventually, after being sick for three months she is at her final stage of coming of age and is being sent off to England to become a nurse, with her relationship with her parents mended.

Major Themes: Annie and her mother
Children growing apart from their parents while becoming an adolescent is the major theme in the novel. Annie and her mother share common personalities, goals and even look exactly alike. For these reasons, while Annie John is growing up and becoming older she becomes more distant to her mother. Their similar qualities and thoughts are the same some times that they don't have to say a word to each other it shows on their faces.

Reception and Style
Annie John is a book with many feminist views. Her writing form is not in the traditional paragraph form, but run-on sentences and paragraphs with little fragments. Jan Hall, a writer for Salem Press Master Plots, Fourth Edition book states in a article about Annie John that “because the novel has no years, months, or dates the story has a sense of timelessness.”.

Barbara Wiedemann who is also a writer for the Masterplots series {Weidemann being in the second edition}, writes that Kincaid’s fiction is not specifically aimed at a young adult audience, but the readers will benefit from insight evident in Kincaid’s description of coming of age.

Connection to other books by Kincaid
There are clear echoes to themes and events from Kincaid’s stories Lucy and My Brother. My brother is a non-fiction story, yet Annie John has some of the same events and facts placed in her own family as if Annie was Kincaid when she was younger. In My Brother, Kincaid's father had to walk after he ate because he had a bad digestive tract and heart, their family ate fish, bread, and butter, a six year old died in her mother’s arm going over the same bridge that her father had recently walked on after eating, and the character of Miss Charlotte dies in both books. Lucy can be cited as a continuation of Annie John being that Annie John has moved off of her Caribbean island of Antigua and is starting a new life in England, even though Lucy is in America, because hypothetically Annie John will have to learn how to adjust to England. Jan Hall writes “the themes of Annie John, Jamaica Kincaid’s first novel are continued in Lucy {1990}, a novel about a young woman’s experiences after leaving her Caribbean island.”

Character List
Annie Victoria John is the narrator and protagonist of the story. She tells her story from being a young girl to being on the verge of adulthood. Her mother is named Annie also. It can be predicted that part of her name is John because of her mother’s mother who she “worshipped” died and she wanted to pay tribute to him since she loved him abundantly.

Annie is Annie John’s mother. She is very strict on Annie but wants to let her grow up for herself and learn how to be a woman just like her. She left Dominica at the age of sixteen after a disspute with her father, came to Antigua and met Annie’s dad. Her actual name [Annie] is not mentioned until the end of the book because she is referred to as “my mother” throughout the story.

Alexander is Annie John's father. He is a basic handyman, he built the house and most of the furniture Annie John and her mother posses. He is thirty-five years older than Annie [the mother] and has children are six and four years older than her. It is also said early in the book that a woman that he had a child or children with never forgave him for having a child with Annie and was putting bad spirits on them. His name is not mentioned until the end of the book because he is referred to as “my father.”

Gwendolyn Joseph is Annie John’s first love, that she met at the all girls school she goes to. They met when Gwendolyn pinched Annie “affectionately” and presented a small volcanic rock doused in a lavender scent. The two walked home together ever since that day, until Annie John decided they didn't have anymore of the same interests. She is referred to as “Gwen” throughout the story.

The Red Girl is Annie John’s friend she meets while trying to her guava off a tree with a stone because girls were not permitted to climb up them, only boys. The Red girl climbed up the tree and got the guava fruit and by doing that and knowing Annie John’s mother, Annie, would never approve she befriends her. She is called the Red Girl for her red hair. Aside from getting the fruit she introduces Annie John to marbles, which her mother forbids stating is young ladies do not play marbles. Eventually she is sent to finish her schooling in Anguilla with her grandparents for reasons that had nothing to do with Annie John.

Ma Jolie is an Obeah Woman who gives special treatments and potions, while seeing the futures to help others in need. She is called upon many times in the book, especially when Annie John gets sick for 3 months.