61 pages • 2 hours read
Sarah DessenA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
High school senior Auden West reads an email from her new stepmother Heidi, which details that she is pregnant with Auden’s half-sibling, that she owns a store, and that her father is busy writing a novel. Heidi invites Auden to visit them. She judges Heidi as an annoying, exuberant girly girl ever since the woman and her dad “got involved, pregnant, and married within the last year” (2). At 26, Heidi is much younger than her father. Though Heidi has invited her many times, Auden isn’t sure if she fits into her dad’s life with his new wife, house, job, and soon-to-be new baby.
Auden lives with her mother, Dr. Victoria West, an “acclaimed academic scholar with a sharp, smart wit and a nationwide reputation as an expert on women’s roles in Renaissance literature” (2). In comparison to Heidi, who gets manicures, highlights, and talks about fashion, Victoria is an intelligent, cold professor who considers work the focus of life. She hosts her graduate students for a dinner party. Women are typically jealous of her, and she doesn’t often bond with other women due to her superior attitude.
Auden drives to her favorite 24-hour diner to read since she hardly sleeps. Her insomnia is due to her parents’ arguments before they divorced. Her parents’ tumultuous relationship involved jealousy over publications and career success. The friction escalated into banged pots and full-blown fights at night when they thought Auden was asleep. At first, Auden stayed up late and stopped the fighting by leaving her light on, using the bathroom, etc. For a while, her parents controlled their arguing, then didn’t care if Auden heard. Auden remembers feeling small, though not surprised, when they said they were getting divorced.
Her brother Hollis, who is four years older and traveling, was the colicky, spirited child who remains a kid at heart. In comparison, Auden was the “little adult” (7). She’s always been expected to be mature, taken to symphonies, art shows, meetings, and conferences—seen but not heard. Because of her upbringing, Auden has trouble making friends. She doesn’t understand rambunctious kids and activities like bike riding.
Attending multiple private, competitive schools, Auden feels that “school is her solace” and that studying lets her escape (9). Although her parents are proud, Auden admits that failure would have earned more attention. Academic success is ingrained. She’s worked hard and will attend the prestigious Defriese University in the fall.
On the morning of Auden’s high school graduation, her father Robert calls and informs her that her stepsister, Thisbe, was born. Heidi and the baby are healthy, but Robert is going to miss Auden’s valedictorian speech. Auden congratulates him and tells her mother the news. Victoria makes snarky comments about how Robert wasn’t helpful with Hollis, who cried constantly. Auden suggests that maybe her father has changed, though Victoria confidently states people don’t change.
One summer night, while Auden reads on the porch, she receives a package from her brother. It is an image of Hollis at the Taj Mahal inside a colorful stone picture frame inscribed with the words “The Best of Times.”
The picture frame sparks ideas about traveling, parties, romance, gossip, and other things her classmates discuss but she’s never experienced. She thinks that she doesn’t have one picture to put in this Best of Times frame, so she’s drawn to go somewhere. Suddenly, she emails Heidi to confirm her visit.
Auden packs her car and says farewell to her mother. She’s surprised when Victoria states she wants juicy details about her dad. Auden notices a pair of black-framed glasses that one of Victoria’s graduate students wears. Auden knows the glasses are a clue to her mother’s relations with this student, but she doesn’t say anything.
Auden arrives at her father’s house on the beach to a distraught, haggard Heidi and perpetually crying baby Thisbe. Heidi is overwhelmed, and her father is not helpful with the baby. Auden naps until about dinnertime and then visits Robert, who remains busy writing. He suggests they go get dinner, and Auden is disappointed that he means for her to pick up dinner. Yet she reasons he can’t go out with a new baby or when he’s in the writing zone. When Auden inquires about the fussy baby, Robert explains Heidi doesn’t want to hire a nanny and that her mom passed away a few years ago, so they don’t have extra help. He tells Auden not to worry about it, then returns to his computer screen without even realizing his daughter is still talking.
She walks to the boardwalk passing Heidi’s boutique called Clementine’s. The boutique has an orange awning and many trendy products inside. As Auden walks, she gets hit on by one of three boys at a bike shop. The boy calls her the “hottest” girl in town and invites her to the Tip later. A tall, redheaded girl glares at her when the boy catcalls her. Auden doesn’t know how to react and hurries back home with the food order.
Auden returns to the baby still crying and Heidi venting to her about the hardships of parenting. Heidi then apologizes and mentions that the Tip is a peninsula off the beach where teens hang out. When Robert joins her for a quick dinner, she realizes her dad is selfish. He checks on the baby and Heidi briefly, then goes back to writing, leaving Auden alone.
With Thisbe’s crying annoying her, Auden plans to go for a walk. Auden spots a bonfire and a truck in the distance. She decides to follow her intuition, as Hollis would do, and arrives at the Tip. The boy who cat-called her, Jake, is at the bonfire party, and she also bumps into a handsome, quiet stranger in a blue hoodie–unknowingly her future love interest, Eli.
Auden channels her mother and flirts with Jake. After a “fumbled, hurried connection,” Auden quickly leaves the party, ignoring Jake asking what her problem is and why she’s hurrying away. Once home to the finally quiet house, Auden cries; she knows she’s smart, but she made a stupid mistake having sex with Jake. It was a meaningless physical encounter she regrets.
Thisbe cries again while Auden tries to read, and she kindly relieves Heidi from the baby. Auden walks Thisbe around the house, then puts her in her stroller and goes to the boardwalk. She sees the boy in the blue hoodie doing bike tricks, and they share a moment over Thisbe. Auden says it’s been a long night. She notes he looks haunted as he replies, “Aren’t they all,” then pedals away on his bike (46).
Heidi bakes Auden muffins as a thank you for watching Thisbe. Then Heidi receives a call about the store needing her checkbook. Robert and Heidi get into a disagreement over watching Thisbe so Heidi can go to the store; he claims he must keep writing. Auden volunteers to take the checkbook. At Clementine’s, she meets a pretty teenage clerk named Maggie. Maggie’s friends Esther and Leah enter with news about Maggie’s ex-boyfriend Jake. Mortified, Auden shrinks into the corner while Esther and Leah reveal that Jake hooked up with a girl, describing her looks. Maggie confronts Auden about Jake. She’s crying and brokenhearted until Maggie asks if she likes him. Auden replies, “He’s nothing to me” (56).
One evening, the family goes to the Last Chance restaurant, but Heidi is interrupted by calls. Her payroll did not go through, so Maggie, Esther, and Leah won’t get paid. Heidi and Robert bicker about family time, but Heidi insists it’s her business, and Robert says writing is his business, but he will put it off tonight.
Auden and Robert sit at the restaurant while Heidi handles the shop’s payroll issues. Thisbe erupts into crying, and Auden takes her outside under her father’s pressure. Eli is on the boardwalk, and he settles Thisbe down with the elevator trick of moving her up and down. Auden thanks him as Heidi returns and he heads to his job at the bike shop.
After dinner, Auden walks the beach, knowing Heidi and her father will continue their argument. When she returns home, she hears Heidi and her dad fighting. Robert implores Heidi to get a nanny, though she argues she needs his assistance. They’ve discussed that he needs to work on his book before teaching again and that he has a sleep condition. Robert tells her to rely on Auden like a nanny and asks, “Isn’t that why you wanted her to come visit?” (69), but Heidi replies she didn’t invite her to babysit. Robert asks why then, and Heidi says, “For the same reason I want you to spend time with your baby. Because she’s your daughter, and you should want to be with her” (69). Auden is touched by Heidi but disappointed with her father.
Hurt and frustrated, Auden drives around the town of Colby for several hours. She finally returns to the quiet house and sees Heidi’s checkbook and financial papers in a disorganized mess on the table. Auden stays up and finds the accounting error for Heidi.
The effects of her parents’ divorce remain with Auden; her insomnia and avoidance of emotional connections and social interactions stem from the divorce. For instance, Auden avoids speaking with her mother about the graduate student’s forgotten glasses, though she thinks Victoria is having an affair with him. Auden doesn’t enjoy “sentimental” conversations, as she’s more stoic and doesn’t understand emotional topics, qualities she shares with her mother. She wouldn’t even know how to approach discussing Victoria’s love life. Auden also doesn’t want to be hugged by Tara, her brother’s girlfriend, or talk to Heidi in-depth about her stress over Thisbe. She’s cautious when she mentions to her father that perhaps they should get a nanny, or he should help Heidi more, and Robert silences her concern by telling her not to worry, that it isn’t her place to fix their problems.
When Auden contemplates the picture frame from her brother, she doesn’t miss the frivolous and unnecessary experiences she forfeited growing up. Prom is the only event she wanted to attend. Her date was to be her classmate Jason, who she fought with for valedictorian. Jason asked her to go to prom as a peace offering, but he stood her up to go to an ecology conference he was accepted to instead. She often second-guesses if she missed too much, so she hopes to make meaningful memories this summer. The frame symbolizes her journey to try new experiences and pushes her into the main themes of second chances and living the childhood she missed.
Since Auden was inspired by Hollis’s picture to create new experiences, she tries to resist her antisocial tendencies. Soon after she arrives, she attends the party at the Tip, where she hooks up with Jake. After Auden hurriedly leaves Jake, she cannot suppress her emotions: “Jake’s easy smile, our fumbled, hurried connection behind the dunes [...] suddenly all felt so weird and wrong, not like me at all. Maybe my mom could play the aloof, selfish bitch. But that was what I’d been doing: playing. Until the game was up” (43). From this pivotal mistake, she learns that she craves a real, deep connection with someone. Auden won’t give herself away again unless she shares mental and emotional intimacy. She can’t be like her mother, having a fling and not caring. After witnessing her parents’ intense divorce and now the conflict between Heidi and Robert, she considers avoiding relationships altogether.
Heidi also defends Auden, which surprises and impresses her. When Robert suggests Heidi invited Auden to be a free babysitter, she rejects this idea. Heidi makes it clear that she invited Auden so Robert could spend time with her and Thisbe; she hoped that Robert would make time to bond with both his daughters. Unlike Robert, who can be selfish and manipulative, Heidi didn’t have any ulterior motives when she invited Auden to stay with them. Though Auden misjudged Heidi as delicate and superficial, she sees her in a new light when she stands up for her. Auden is touched that Heidi contradicted her father and encouraged him to share quality time with his family and balance his social life with his work life. She is also hurt that her father didn’t invite her for the summer, but Heidi did, which speaks to Robert’s obsession with his novel and inability to sacrifice or compromise for his family.
By Sarah Dessen