Oddbody by Rose Keating Reading Journal

I really liked the concept of cleansing in this story and how Catherine was constantly trying to figure out what was wrong with her. No matter what she did or how much she tried to cleanse herself, nothing seemed to work, and she only continued to get worse.

What interested me most was the ending when the evil was finally taken out of her and escaped. Afterward, she went to free the greyhounds, opening their cages while laughing almost hysterically. I found that scene quite unsetteling, but also strangely interesting.

I wondered whether freeing the dogs represented her own freedom, or whether removing the evil changed something in her completely. I don't really know how to interpret her laughter either. Was it relief, liberation, or had she finallly lost control? I liked that the story left me thinking about those possibilities.

I also found it interesting how the story connected the idea of being clean with being good or pure. Catherine seemed so desperate to get rid of whatever was inside her, almost as if she belived there was something fundamentally wrong with her. It made me wonder whether the evil was actually something separate from her or whether it represented something she has been made to feel ashamed of. And if that was the case, was removing it really what she needed to be free?