Rhonda Massengill "Serena" by Ron Rash

What did you think of the main character, Serena, and her motivations?
Serena is a very self centered individual. She is very smart and she knows how to get her own way. She is able to manipulate men into whatever she wants them to do. The first person she is able to manipulate is her husband. She ends up taking control over his business and runs the business the way that she sees fit. Next she is able to manipulate one of her husbands worker. She talks her husband into keeping the logger on their payroll even after he has cut his hand off. The reason that she keeps him on their payroll is because they went in half on some land. She manipulates him into signing a contract that prevents him from evaluating anything on the land until the timber is cut. She uses this against him and he ends up killing for her. At the end of the novel he goes as far as to kill her husband. Lastly she manipulates another worker into making a bet with her. The bet is that he will go two weeks without a paycheck if she is able to guess the length of the tree better than him. He was known for being able to guess the measurements of the tree better than any of the other timber cutters. She wins the bet and through her winning she convinces her husband into firing him. That is exactly what her husband did was fire that worker.
Compare and contrast Serena and Pemberton.
Serena and Pemberton are both people that are self centered. They spend their life using other people to get what they want. They both love each other more than anyone else. The difference is that Pemberton starts to change throughout the novel. He starts to feel responsible for the safety of his son. He ends of sending some money to help his son out and then his wife finds out. She is still ruthless and tries to get his son and his mom killed. At the end of the novel she ends up killing her own husband. She has compassion for animals and her husband doesn’t.
Compare Serena with Rachel Harmon. How are they alike and also different?
Rachel is not selfish. She is a people pleaser. She lived her life trying to make her dad happy. Then she lives her life trying to be the best mom ever by making her son happy. She refuses to push her problem on Pamperton even though he is the father of her boy Jacob. She even risk her own safety by running from her problems instead of dealing with them. She does this because she knew how hard it was to live life without a mom and didn’t want her son to go through the same thing. Serena on the other hand is very selfish. She will use any and everybody to get what she wants in life. She is not able to have a child of her own. She got pregnant and lost her child and the ability to conceive again. The way they are alike is that they both had to deal with the lost of those they loved. Rachel’s mom left her while Serena’s family died of an illiness. They both had a romantic relationship with Pamperton. They were both raised in the mountains.