51 pages • 1 hour read
Abby JimenezPart of Your World
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Literary Context: Contemporary Romance
Jimenez’s novels, including Part of Your World, fall into the genre of contemporary romance and the subgenre of romantic comedy. Although Part of Your World deals with dark subjects such as Cycles of Abuse, shame, and complicated family dynamics, it is underpinned by lighthearted and comedic moments that often shift the tone away from the more serious subject matter. Contemporary romances are categorized by their happy endings and familiar plotlines but often focus on the main characters’ personal growth and the obstacles they must overcome to achieve their happy ending. As in Part of Your World, most contemporary romance heroines and heroes are flawed; these narratives often show them helping each other overcome barriers not only to becoming romantically involved but also to being better and happier people.
Just as contemporary romance novels rely on familiar narrative structures, they also often involve well-worn tropes, archetypes, and situations, such as enemies-to-lovers relationships, marriage-of-convenience plotlines, and small-town settings. Part of Your World uses many conventions typical of contemporary romance novels, including the opposites-attract trope, in which two characters who would not normally cross paths are brought together by chance and fall in love. Forbidden love, or the star-crossed lovers archetype, is another common romance convention used in Part of Your World, where it forces Alexis and Daniel to confront the fears and priorities that prevent them from becoming romantically involved and hinder them personally. Small-town settings are also not uncommon in contemporary romance novels and can be found in works such as Emily Henry’s Book Lovers, Ashley Poston’s The Dead Romantics, Sara Adams’s When in Rome, and Tessa Bailey’s It Happened One Summer. Jimenez uses the small-town setting of Wakan, Minnesota, to highlight the differences between her main characters and to show the strengths and struggles of tight-knit rural communities.
Sociocultural Context: American Healthcare Disparities
The non-profit organization KFF defines healthcare disparity as “differences between groups in health insurance coverage, affordability, access to and use of care, and quality of care” (Ndugga, Nambi, and Samantha Artiga. “Disparities in Health and Health Care.” KFF, 2023). Health and healthcare disparities affect numerous Americans, with various economic, social, and environmental factors disproportionately harming already marginalized or underserved communities. In Part of Your World, Alexis, an ER doctor, will sometimes treat patients in the waiting room rather than checking them in to the hospital or will bill them in a way that lowers their costs, as she understands the general disparities in American healthcare. KFF also states that “people in rural areas face barriers to accessing care due to low density of providers and longer travel times to care, as well as more limited access to health coverage.” In Part of Your World, the rural small town of Wakan is several hours away from hospitals and other medical providers, so members of the community often don’t get the healthcare they need. At the end of the novel, Alexis gives a speech to the wealthy and privileged patrons of her prestigious urban hospital in Minneapolis: “I have seen patients stitch themselves up with gin and fishhooks because they can’t afford a trip to the ER” (305). The Rural Health Information Hub notes that “inequities in healthcare access that existed before the pandemic were made more severe during the pandemic, including aging rural hospital infrastructure, less access to ICU beds and ventilators, and less access to specialty care” (“Rural Health Disparities.” Rural Health Information Hub, 2022). As Part of Your World is set in 2022, the novel’s juxtaposed settings can also be seen in the context of the post-pandemic health environment.
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