Through a first-person narrator, author Judy Budnitz explores the ideas of familial peer pressure and its effects on those affected. After his mother has a heart attack, Arnie, the protagonist, is forced by family members to give his heart up and is told, “And the first time your mother needs you, you turn your back on her!” (Budnitz, 87). Arnie’s aunts are peer pressuring him into giving his own heart to his mother when he doesn't want to. They are using manipulation and guilt as tactics to get him to make a rash decision. This is often the case when family members use peer pressure to get…