Summer Romance

Ali meets Ethan at the Beechwood dog park at the start of the novel, instigating their heated, intense love affair throughout the summer months. Initially, she doesn’t recognize Ethan as Frannie’s brother, whose nickname was Scooter when they were growing up. Ethan was two years younger than Ali and Frannie, so they didn’t often spend time together as kids, and Ethan was known as an irresponsible, wayward boy. Ali soon discovers who Ethan is, and she’s shocked by how much he has changed since they were kids.

Ethan is self-assured, authentic, and selfless. He has changed since he was a teen as a result of complicated experiences in his youth, which taught him that if he didn’t take control of his life, he risked losing it. After college, he worked for a time as a lawyer in a corporate firm in Manhattan in an attempt to prove that he’d changed and satisfy his parents’ expectations for his life. However, he eventually quit this job to move to Devon, Massachusetts, and start fresh. In Devon, Ethan became the person he always dreamed of being. He continues to practice law but has also become an integral part of the community. He owns and operates a local skate park, through which he invests in the teen community. He also volunteers at local shops and helps his neighbors and friends when he can.

Ethan has a fraught relationship with Beechwood, which complicates his and Ali’s attempts to merge their lives. He’s reluctant to give up his life in Devon because he always told himself he would never move back to his childhood hometown. In Beechwood, he feels limited by others’ memories of him and often feels that he regresses into an uglier version of himself when he’s there. For these reasons, Ali is reluctant to ask him to give up his life in Devon to be with her in Beechwood. She wants to love and respect what makes him happy and avoid compromising the life and identity he built after his complicated childhood and adolescence. Despite these dynamics, Ethan decides to move to Beechwood to be with Ali. He realizes that he’s in control of his identity and future no matter where he is. Furthermore, he understands that his relationship with Ali offers him a new sense of home and belonging that Devon can’t offer him without her.

A secondary, static character, Pete is Ali’s ex-husband and Greer, Iris, and Cliffy’s dad. One year before the novel’s present, Pete told Ali he didn’t “want to be married anymore” (2). His decision to make this announcement on the one-year anniversary of Ali’s mom’s death conveys his character’s disregard for Ali’s emotions. Indeed, Pete’s failure to invest in his wife’s and children’s lives throughout his marriage to Ali makes him an antagonist in her story. When he and Ali met, Ali saw him as an ideal match. She particularly admired how he “was all in on everything—his job, his bicycling, his weekend soccer league” (122). However, once she got pregnant and they married, Pete quickly proved that he “was never going to step up when [she and the kids] needed him” (123). Throughout their marriage, he remained distant, removed, and distracted. Ali never stood up to him because her mom always encouraged her to give him his freedom and not to pick fights. Over time, ignoring Pete’s inconsiderate behaviors left Ali feeling empty, alone, and powerless.

Even though Pete and Ali are separated, Pete remains unkind, selfish, and bullying. He scoffs at Ali’s life and disrespects her work, home, and personal space. He often changes his plans after committing to take the kids. He tries to make financial decisions behind Ali’s back and manipulate budget calculations to get out of paying the appropriate amount for alimony. These behaviors underscore Pete’s carelessness and self-involvement while proving that his character is incapable of self-reflection and disinterested in change.

Ali’s mother and Greer, Iris, and Cliffy’s grandmother, Fancy had the given name of Nancy, but Ali primarily refers to her as Fancy throughout the novel because this is what her children used to call her. Although Ali wouldn’t “describe [her] as fancy,” she insists that the name suited her mom because she “was prone to acting on a desire or a whim, anything easy and fun—a passing fancy” (5). Since Fancy’s death two years ago, Ali’s life has felt devoid of this ease and enjoyment, so Ali often tries to summon her mom’s energetic, lighthearted spirit whenever she feels discouraged or down. She tries to maintain the traditions her mom made with her for the sake of her kids. Meanwhile, Ali continues to talk to her mom when she’s alone. These conversations grant Ali a way to process her complex emotions and help her to remember her mom’s encouragement and strength.

Over the course of the novel, Ali begins to realize the fraught nature of her kinship with Fancy. She doesn’t like feeling mad at her mom, but divorcing Pete awakens her to how much she changed herself in her marriage to please Fancy. Fancy was the one who always wanted the big house filled with kids. Even though Ali’s relationship wasn’t working, she consistently ignored Pete’s selfishness to satisfy her mother’s expectations for her life and to fulfill her mom’s dreams by proxy. Throughout the novel, Ali confronts these issues in her private conversations with Fancy. In doing so, she’s learning to make amends with the past, to confront her grief over Fancy’s death, and to reclaim who she is independent of her mother and their relationship.

A secondary character, Frannie is Ali’s childhood best friend and Ethan’s older sister. In the novel’s present, she’s 38 years old and is married to a man named Marco, with whom she has a baby named Theo. For years, Frannie has run Hogan Diner, which her parents own. She enjoys the work but becomes overwhelmed and despondent when her parents leave her the restaurant and move to Florida. Like Ali, Frannie is attempting to strike a work and life balance throughout the novel. She dedicates much of her time to supporting her community and friends and is a constant source of encouragement and stability in Ali’s life, consistently reminding Ali that she deserves to be happy.