You Go First

“Charlotte was excited that she was going to dissect a starfish. The impending assignment had taken her down several rabbit holes—starfish led to marine invertebrates; marine invertebrates led to sea anemones; sea anemones led to fossil records—but as she followed her mother to the recovery room, heart thumping with her footsteps, an image sprang into her head and she couldn’t shake it out: the starfish, a scalpel, and her hand on both. And then the starfish was gone and it was her father instead.”

This passage illustrates The Impact of Family Dynamics on Young People. Charlotte has trouble processing her father’s heart attack and attempts to distract herself by focusing on other topics, such as the upcoming starfish dissection in science class. However, the images of the starfish and her father blend into one, representing the impact of this traumatic event on Charlotte. She is characterized in parallel with Ben here, through meditations on scientific phenomena, likewise sketching her out as an inquisitive and intelligent kid.

“The opposite of evolution was devolution. Complex species reverting to simpler forms. It was a contested and controversial concept, but it fit Ben’s parents perfectly. They had once been simple, single individuals. Then they got married and became a complex unit. Now they were regressing to their simpler form. No longer a family. Three single units. […] Devolution. Maybe that was his life: gradually devolving from a boy with two parents and two sort-of friends to a boy with no parents and no friends at all.”

This passage further illustrates The Impact of Family Dynamics on Young People. Refusing to speak to his parents about their divorce, Ben develops the idea that they’re not only breaking up with each other but also with him, and he’ll be left alone without a family. He views this as “devolution” because, whereas the three of them were originally a unit, now they’re reverting to three separate individuals. This isn’t really true, but Ben will continue to believe it until he speaks to his parents and starts processing his emotions.

“He wanted to tell her everything. About the announcement. His theories of his parental devolution. Even about becoming a brilliant hermit, and maybe the part about him not having anyone to call when he won the Nobel Prize or the lottery. But now that they were actually on the phone, he discovered that none of those words would come out of his mouth. It seemed like a lot to unload on someone on your very first phone conversation.”

This passage develops The Role of Online Games and Communication in Forming Connections. Even though Ben and Charlotte don’t share their real problems with each other, Ben still feels better after calling Charlotte upon learning about his parents’ divorce because at least he has someone he can call who is willing to listen. Charlotte and Ben’s connection is a lifeline for both characters, and they keep each other afloat despite the hardships they’re both going through.

“Charlotte didn’t prefer Charlotte. She preferred something more familiar, like Charlie or Lottie. She wanted someone to lean over and say, Do you have a pencil I can borrow, Lottie? Or Hey, Charlie, can I copy your paper? But it never happened.

She was Charlotte, plain and simple.

Except when she played Scrabble. Then she was Lottie Lock.”

This passage introduces the symbolism of nicknames, which represent The Challenges of Navigating Friendship and Bullying in Middle School. Charlotte believes that nicknames are proof that someone has friends, so she wishes she had a nickname because it would imply she had more friends. Although no one gives her a nickname in real life, she gives herself a nickname for online Scrabble. Doing this leads to her making a new friend, Ben, who does think of her as Lottie.

“He was still splayed across his bed and staring at the ceiling. He hadn’t moved. He needed to pee, but didn’t want to leave his bedroom. Things still made sense in here. His comforter. His laptop. His Minecraft universe. The stuffed bookshelves. No one in this room was getting a divorce. Everything was in stasis.”

This passage further illustrates The Impact of Family Dynamics on Young People. Afraid that his parents’ influence will cause him to devolve, Ben locks himself in his bedroom, where everything is in “stasis.” Ironically, keeping everything the same is counterproductive if Ben wants to evolve because evolution necessarily involves change. Ben’s distress is replicated in the writing style here; he is listing things he can see around him, a common technique for easing anxiety.

“When Ms. Khatri told her about her father’s heart attack, Charlotte’s feet had turned to stone. She couldn’t move. For a second she thought she might have a heart attack, too. There was a weight on her chest that wouldn’t go away. She had a million thoughts, but the only thing that came out of her mouth was, ‘I should have played more Scrabble.’”

Charlotte’s dad’s heart attack has such a massive effect on her that no words can express her feelings. Her sentence about Scrabble seems like nonsense or deflection, but she is expressing her guilt over not seizing the chance to spend time with her dad (with whom she used to play Scrabble). Kelly reflects this emotional weight with a metaphor here, comparing Charlotte’s body to stone.

“‘It’s no problem,’ said Charlotte, even though she felt like a stone was sitting in her chest. She wanted to say: It’s not like I haven’t wondered the same thing. Sometimes I think about it so much that I’m surprised there’s room in my head for any other thoughts. But it’s strange to hear someone say it out loud, you know? It’s like hearing your thoughts come to life when you thought they were your own. Has that ever happened to you?”

This passage develops The Impact of Family Dynamics on Young People as well as The Challenges of Navigating Friendship and Bullying in Middle School. The stone metaphor recurs, representing Charlotte’s strained emotions after Bridget’s brother asks if her father is dying. Internally, Charlotte acknowledges that she can hardly manage to think about anything else. However, she doesn’t know how to express this to Bridget because this isn’t a topic that most middle-schoolers talk about. Consequently, being around Bridget doesn’t really make Charlotte feel any less lonely or adrift.

“‘Toil, toll, till.’

‘Making words out of xylitol?’

‘Yep.’

At that moment, Ben was overwhelmed with an aching wish. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d wished for something with such ferocity. It almost made him misty-eyed—almost—but he allowed himself to think it once quickly before he swallowed it away and pushed it into the corner of his mind.

I wish Lottie Lock went to my school so I’d have someone to sit with at lunch.”

This passage illustrates The Role of Online Games and Communication in Forming Connections. Whereas Charlotte’s real-life classmates think her word scrambles are bizarre, Ben thinks they are awesome and wishes that he and Charlotte could hang out and eat lunch together in real life. Like the parallel passages about science before, this shared word game symbolizes their mutual interests and true friendship. Charlotte and Ben find acceptance in each other, even though they live in different states and haven’t met in real life. This is a gift in and of itself, but it also paves the way for both children to believe that they can be accepted by other people as well.

“Ben’s ears rang from the impact. A sudden headache shot from the back of his head to his eyes as Theo and his friends disappeared into the crowded hallway. Ben thought the sound of his head hitting the locker was the loudest crash on earth. It buzzed through every part of his body. But no one else seemed fazed. Middle-school hallways were full of so much activity. Who would notice such a small little thing?”

This passage develops The Challenges of Navigating Friendship and Bullying in Middle School. Kelly uses visceral imagery to evoke the feelings of being bullied. This reflects how to Ben, Theo bashing his head into a locker is a huge deal, but no one else seems to notice. This illustrates how widespread bullying is and how easily it’s ignored by people who are not the targets of it.

“Middle school seemed like an endless aching game where everyone knew the rules but her.”

This quote develops The Challenges of Navigating Friendship and Bullying in Middle School. Charlotte struggles to make friends and avoid being bullied in middle school because the social norms are incomprehensible to her. Meanwhile, most other kids seem to understand these rules. This metaphor positions social interactions as a game, in contrast to the games Charlotte does understand, like Scrabble.

“Ben carried his shirt to the boys’ bathroom knowing the medium would be too big. But it’s not often that you’re given a choice of what you want to be, and Ben decided he didn’t want to be small.”

This passage develops The Challenges of Navigating Friendship and Bullying in Middle School. After Theo smears ketchup on Ben’s shirt and calls him a “shrimp” because he’s small, Ben requests a size medium for his replacement shirt. The physical size of the T-shirt symbolizes the metaphorical size of the space Ben wants to take up—he wants to evolve and become “bigger,” thinking it will help him avoid being bullied.

“Charlotte didn’t open her eyes until her phone buzzed.

Ben had played MASCOT.

At least there was something she could still count on.”

This passage illustrates The Role of Online Games and Communication in Forming Connections. Even though Charlotte is struggling with major problems such as her father’s illness and her dwindling friendship with Bridget, she takes comfort in her friendship and online Scrabble games with Ben. This keeps Charlotte afloat when she feels like she’s lost everything else.

“He numbered his platform proposals one through eleven and wrote them out in detail. Each time he finished a sentence, he heard Theo’s voice…and saw Sherry Bertrand’s face…But he would not be defeated. He would not relinquish control over his own emotional well-being. He only had himself now—no more reliable parental units to have his back.

‘You are a finch,’ he said, without looking away from his laptop. ‘You are a finch.’”

This quote illustrates both The Challenges of Navigating Friendship and Bullying in Middle School and The Impact of Family Dynamics on Young People. Ben feels abandoned by his parents at home and targeted by bullies at school, but he remains resilient and resists others’ attempts to control his emotions. The metaphor of a “finch” refers to finches that Charles Darwin studied when formulating his theories about evolution and natural selection. When Ben calls himself a finch, he means that he’s still evolving and is strong enough to complete his evolutionary journey.

“‘I have news,’ he said, when Lottie answered. He didn’t know what news he was going to tell her. His parents’ divorce? His theories of personal evolution? The situation with Sherry, Theo, and the rest?

He only knew that he wanted to say something to someone about something.”

This passage develops The Role of Online Games and Communication in Forming Connections. Once again, Ben calls Charlotte when he’s bothered about important, unfortunate events going on in his life, but instead of talking about his real problems, he makes up something else to talk about, illustrating the difficulty he has with being emotionally vulnerable. However, Charlotte and Ben’s connection is still valuable and healing for both children, even if they don’t share their biggest problems or secrets. Just having one friend, however shallow, is a saving grace for both kids when they feel alone.

“She’d cried so much the night before that she soaked her pillow. When she woke up, her cheek was damp and itched. She was pretty sure she’d been crying about Bridget, but as the night went on she had thought about her father and even her mother—how her mother hadn’t hassled her about going to see her dad and had been unusually patient—and then a million of other things crept into her mind. Scalpels and YouTube videos of open-heart surgeries. Starfish dissections. And things that didn’t make any sense. Her parents looking at the ballroom ceiling. Her hidden dolls. Scrabble on the dining room table. Staring at Gaugin and wondering when she could leave. Ben Boot, too, and the things he said on the phone—Why don’t you just all hang out together?—and after a while she wasn’t sure what she was crying about.”

This passage illustrates The Challenges of Navigating Friendship and Bullying in Middle School as well as The Impact of Family Dynamics on Young People. Charlotte’s problems arise all at once, and when she finally succumbs to crying, her thoughts and emotions snowball until she’s unsure what she is crying about. The structure of this paragraph mimics that snowballing, starting with a long, drawn-out sentence with multiple clauses before a string of sentence fragments quickens the pace. Her thoughts segue to Ben, seemingly because he gives her comfort when everything else feels out of control.

“Charlotte has a complete image of Lottie Lock, Scrabble champion. Lottie was pretty, smart, and funny. Lottie’s parents were full of energy and life. They took her ice-skating. They went to amusement parks and the zoo. Lottie had hundreds of friends to choose from, too. They went to the shore in the summer and the Poconos in the winter. She never felt sad. She appreciated everything she had, but she didn’t need much. Her bed was perfectly made every morning with the fluffiest, most comfortable pillows you could ever imagine. When she woke up, there were no tangles in her hair and she didn’t have a crick in her neck. There were no clothes on the floor because she was perfectly tidy and organized. This girl—this perfect, perfect girl—never felt out of place because she was always in place. She knew what to say and was never scared. In her entire life, she would never hear no wonder no one likes you.”

This passage develops The Role of Online Games and Communication in Forming Connections. Even though the persona Charlotte invents is imaginary, Lottie Lock allows Charlotte to try out new ideas for her own real personality. Charlotte doesn’t become all the things that Lottie is, but through this fictional exercise, she learns which qualities she wants to cultivate. While Lottie’s life feels out of reach to Charlotte, she represents her ideal life through quotidian descriptions: a made bed, a neat room, and most importantly, friends.

“If you know how to correlate the properties of chemical substances to measure the effects of compounds and study interchemical reactions, you should be able to make a marriage work. Right? Smart people are supposed to do things the smart way, aren’t they?

[…]

Am I one of the reasons you don’t want to live here anymore?

Is it because I don’t have enough friends and I’m always home when you are and you and Mom never have enough time to spend together?

‘I,’ said Ben. He swallowed. ‘I don’t have any questions.’”

This passage develops The Impact of Family Dynamics on Young People and illustrates Ben’s difficulty with emotional vulnerability. Internally, Ben lists a string of questions about his parents’ divorce, but he can’t express these questions verbally, so he claims to have no questions. To outsiders, it might seem like Ben isn’t experiencing any emotions, but the close third-person narration makes it clear that he is deeply affected by the divorce, even if he doesn’t show it.

“Even if she ran for hours, it wouldn’t matter. Her dad had a saying: Wherever you go, there you are. She’d once asked him what it meant and he said, ‘You can never run away from yourself.’ She was just a little kid at the time, and she pictured something out of Peter Pan—a shadow trying to escape its owner. But now she knew better.”

Charlotte is feeling so emotionally overwhelmed that she wants to escape, but she knows she can’t outrun her feelings. Kelly uses several literary devices in one paragraph to cement this point. First, she uses an adage—a common phrase expressing a simple truth—that she learned from her father. She also uses an allusion to Peter Pan to compare one’s connection to oneself to the permanence of a shadow.

“Rabbit Hole: About 143 million Americans commute to work each day. A study in 2013 showed that more than 70 percent of them didn’t like their jobs. Studies also show that most people don’t pursue their dreams. There are many reasons why, but one of them is a lack of support or encouragement. Researchers at Ohio State University said any one person can often make a difference in another person’s life, giving them the boost they need.”

This quote indirectly develops The Role of Online Games and Communication in Forming Connections. Charlotte and Ben both make a huge difference in each other’s lives because with no other friends, having even one online friend is a big deal. Charlotte used to wish for hundreds of friends, but after reading this fact about how even one friend can make enough of a difference, she prioritizes quality over quantity. The unique structure here—calling out one of Charlotte’s online “rabbit holes”—reflects how modern online culture works as people get absorbed in reading about unfamiliar topics. This gives Charlotte a new perspective on her situation, which she might not have found offline.

“He didn’t move. If he moved, everything would be real. And he didn’t want anything to be real. He wanted to push himself into the wall and become part of the building.”

This passage illustrates The Challenges of Navigating Friendship and Bullying in Middle School. After Theo and his friends throw firecrackers at Ben during his campaign speech, causing him to wet his pants out of fear and/or shock, Ben wants to disappear. He notes that this is a new feeling, and Kelly illustrates the intensity of his emotions through a hyperbolic metaphor, saying he wants to become part of the wall. Throughout the novel, Ben has trouble dealing with his emotions, and his desire to become inanimate here is the apex of those feelings.

“The whole trip was a mistake. The scab on her knee ached after climbing all the museum stairs and it felt wrong being out of school. She wasn’t a new person at all. She wasn’t Lottie Lock or a character in a movie. She was the girl from the puzzle who didn’t fit in the picture.”

While pretending to be Lottie Lock and skipping school to visit the art museum, Charlotte discovers that some of the qualities she imagined for Lottie don’t actually suit her. For example, Charlotte does not enjoy skipping school or doing things that could get her in trouble, put her in danger, or worry her parents. Charlotte admits that she’s not sure who she is, which gives her space to reconceptualize her ideal self.

“‘You know…’ his father began. ‘There’s this saying by Robert Frost. It goes, ‘In three words I can sum up everything I know about life: It goes on.’’”

This repetition creates a coincidental connection between Ben and Charlotte. Earlier, Charlotte found part of this saying by Robert Frost written on an air conditioning unit on her school’s roof (presumably, it was written there by Magda). However, Magda left out the three words about life, creating a sense of mystery. Now, Ben’s dad completes the quote with the lesson about life, which applies to both Ben and Charlotte. Ben finally reaches a breaking point with bullying and his parents’ divorce, but now that he’s gone through that, he can begin to heal.

“But he couldn’t help it: He liked his room in his father’s apartment and all the fresh boxes with new and disassembled bookshelves. He liked the idea of having a second place, even if he was the same Ben.

Was this evolution?”

This passage complicates The Impact of Family Dynamics on Young People. Before, Ben was sure that divorce meant “devolution” for all three family members, but now, he considers the possibility that evolution could also come out of divorce. Shifting family dynamics are bound to affect children, but the effects need not always be negative. Ben’s feelings here parallel Charlotte’s after her outing as Lottie; despite the pain, he has a blank slate and an opportunity to sculpt a new life for himself.