The Candymakers

“But every night, after he listed all the things he was grateful for (which took a solid twenty minutes) and when the comforting shapes around him became too dark to see, the fear crept in and whispered in his ear, You don’t have what it takes to be a candymaker.” 

Logan is a complex character who is simultaneously confident and unsure of himself. He is grateful and content with the life he lives, but he also dreams of friendships with people his own age. He enjoys the process of making candy, but he is also afraid that he won’t be a successful candymaker like his father. It’s this fear that creates the initial tension at the beginning of the novel.

“Logan cleared his throat, held up the notepaper, and read, ‘Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.” 

Logan’s mom writes him a brief note every day. On the morning that the contestants arrive, Logan reads his note out loud to the other contestants as a greeting because he doesn’t know how else to introduce himself. This note is significant because it reveals one of the major themes of the novel. Because of this concept, Logan appreciates the other contestants even more after they’ve revealed their potentially damaging secrets. 

“Did he want to win just to win? His top priority, of course, was to create something that would bring people joy. But his motives weren’t entirely unselfish either. Maybe that made him no better than Philip. A depressing thought.” 

Logan grows more self-reflective due to his interactions with the other contestants. Seeing himself through their eyes makes him recognize qualities in himself that he hadn’t seen before. Logan views Philip as a selfish person who only wants to win to gratify his ego. However, Logan realizes that perhaps he wants to win for similar reasons. He wants to bring people happiness with his candy, but he also desires to win for the thrill of it. He understands that maybe he has a selfish side he hadn’t considered before.

“Most kids did not mourn the death of a honeybee, queen or no. But for two years that queen bee had been the reason the other bees had made the honey that flavored the candy at Life Is Sweet, indirectly bringing pleasure to thousands of kids.”

Logan recognizes that he’s different from other kids his age. His years of living in isolation at the factory have given him an appreciation for things that other kids would take for granted. His connection to the bees symbolizes his deep understanding of the candy-making process. He knows that it’s not just about making money; it’s about bringing many different components together to create joy through the experience of the candy. For Logan, the bees represent how even the smallest aspect of the candy-making process can be the most significant. 

“Things change when they’re ready to change. People change when they’re ready, too. You can never predict these things.” 

Logan tells Henry that he’s worried his candy invention won’t work, and Henry responds with this quote. Henry’s words represent one of the main themes of the novel, which is the idea of transformation as a process. Each of the four contestants comes to the competition carrying emotional baggage from various traumas in their past. However, the friendships the contestants form with one another allows them to grow past their personal traumas. 

“Before Miles could answer, a yellow, black, and red butterfly landed silently on the edge of the roof. Neither he nor his dad moved as the butterfly lazily flapped its wings. A minute later, just as silently as it had arrived, it lifted off again. Miles had seen butterflies up close before. But never one with red in it. And never on the roof.” 

Butterflies play a significant role in the novel. Each character witnesses a black, red, and yellow butterfly. This butterfly represents how each character is woven together by the bonds of friendship that are ultimately the catalyst for personal growth. This moment where Miles sees the butterfly foreshadows his ensuing friendships and personal change. 

“Fortunately for him, he loved libraries more than any place in the world. He would live in one if he could. All that knowledge. All those worlds hidden inside their covers.” 

Miles is a character who is defined by his love of language and desire for knowledge. He loves books because they feed this desire, but they also provide a safe space for him to hide from his past trauma. He looks to books to give him meaning and hopes the messages he finds in various texts can show him a way forward. 

“In the afterlife, you know, after you die. Everyone is like, really good friends because no one wants anything. When you don’t want anything, there’s no competition.”

Miles defines friendship as a collective unity where no one desires anything specific from anyone else. When the competition first begins, the four contestants all have different reasons for wanting to win. These reasons separate the contestants and prevent them from becoming true friends. However, once they all come together to help Philip win for the greater good of the Life Is Sweet factory, they are no longer separated by their individual desires. This is why they truly become friends.

“Having his head half in this world and half in the next meant that he saw potential death everywhere he looked.” 

When Miles first begins the candy competition, he is a character who is defined by fear. He believes that he witnessed a girl drowning, and ever since that moment, he views every situation as potentially life-threatening. His disposition only changes after he realizes that Daisy is the girl he saw go under the water, and that she’s very much alive. Miles overcomes his past trauma through his friendship with Daisy. 

“But he could no sooner turn back the clock and give it to the girl to wear as she ran into the water than Logan could undo what had happened to him.” 

Miles and Logan are parallel characters who both experienced past traumas that have impacted their present lives. While Logan tries not to let the accident and his scars define his life, Miles can’t stop thinking about the girl who he believes drowned. Logan tries to see all of life as positive, but Miles can’t help but to see the danger in every situation. Miles recognizes that although he and Logan are very different people, they are connected by pasts that they couldn’t control. 

“Names were things spies took on and off like clothes. She’d had more last names than she could remember. Truth be told, she didn’t even know her real one.” 

Daisy is a character who prides herself on being a successful spy because she believes that it’s what will make her parents most proud. Her parents and grandmother are highly sought-after spies, and she thinks that being a successful spy like them is her only option in life. However, after she enters the candy contest and grows closer to the other contestants, she realizes that perhaps she wants a normal life. For the first time in her life, she questions whether the life of a spy—something that once seemed to fit her like a glove—is right for her. The catalyst for this epiphany comes when she realizes that her new friends can’t really know her true identity. Worse yet, she’s not sure she even knows her true self because she’s been so used to living in disguise.  

“Or was it to protect a black market for monkeys? She had been taught not to question the motives of the client. After all, every story had two sides. Who was she to decide right from wrong?” 

Daisy remembers a particular mission where she and her parents had been hired to supposedly uncover a corrupt black market. However, as she thinks back on this memory, she realizes that maybe she and her parents had actually been helping the black market cover its tracks. This realization makes her feel uneasy. She had always been taught not to question her mission, but everything changes when she becomes friends with Logan and the other contestants. She realizes that the only reason she had been hired is to steal the Candymaker’s secret ingredient, which could only mean that her client wants to sabotage the Life Is Sweet factory. Daisy’s main moment of growth happens when she realizes that she’s not okay with moral ambiguity. She suddenly believes that there is a wrong and right, and she doesn’t want to complete a mission that will hurt her newfound friends.

“But Philip preferred to look at the past only as a way to motivate himself in the present, not as a source of nostalgia. Looking back only kept a person trapped.” 

Philip’s mother died when he was three years old, and ever since then, his competitive brother and father have raised him. Their influence on him has made him view life as one big competition. However, after he joins the competition and learns that his father lied to him about being banned from the Life Is Sweet factory, he allows himself to look back on the memories he had with his mother—something he eschews in this quote. He soon realizes that her vision for his life was very different than the reality he had been living with his father. Reflecting on the memories he has of his mother becomes a cathartic experience that enables him to embrace the inner self that he had worked so hard to repress. 

“He hadn’t eaten a single piece of candy since the day they kicked him out of Life Is Sweet. He’s tried a jelly bean at Easter once, but it tasted like sand and he spit it out.” 

Philip’s father lied to him and said that the Candymaker had kicked him out of the Life Is Sweet factory during their tour because he dropped his truck in the vat of chocolate and ruined the machine. Ever since that day, life has become bitter for Philip, symbolized in the fact that he can’t perceive candy as sweet. It’s only after Philip makes genuine friendships during the contest and makes peace with his past that he perceives candy as sweet again. 

“He hated the feeling of not being in control. He’d been working on this piece ever since he’d discovered the violin…It wasn’t as if anyone was going to hear it performed—why did his brain insist on putting it down on paper?” 

Before joining the candy contest, Philip was motivated by his desire to control every situation. He joined the contest because he wanted to win and enact revenge on Logan. Playing the violin has always been the one thing that Philip is drawn to beyond his control. He feels deeply magnetized to the instrument, yet he fights against his urge to play because he feels ashamed of his desire. He knows his father wants him to be a businessman, and he doesn’t think his father could ever understand his musical passion. It’s only after Philip befriends the other contestants that he embraces his love for the violin. 

“She never felt quite comfortable with your father’s way of doing business. When she got sick she made him promise to teach you boys about art and music and about being grateful for what you have, not just how to compensate and make money.” 

After Reggie reveals this information about Philip’s mother, Philip realizes that he doesn’t have to be a clone of his father. He understands that he can be who he truly desires to be, especially because his true self aligns with the vision his mother had for him. This self-revelation comes after Philip embraces the friendships with the other contestants and reveals his secret love of the violin to his father.

“He figured the less he knew about Logan, the easier it was to go on hating him.” 

A major theme of the novel is the idea that looks can be deceiving. When the contestants first embark on the contest, it’s easy for them to label each other as competition to overcome. This is especially true for Philip. He distances himself from the other contestants because it makes it easier to focus on his plan of revenge. However, once he realizes that Logan isn’t who he thought he was, he can no longer hate him. This changes not only his perception of Logan but also his perception of himself. He realizes that he unfairly hated Logan as a result of the lie his father told him when he was little. In the same way, he’s been trying to be someone he’s not simply because it’s who his father has wanted him to be.

“His goal had always been to win the contest. The only thing that had changed was the reason why.” 

Philip begins the contest with the desire to win solely so that he can enact revenge on Logan. However, once he realizes that the basis for his vengeful desire is a lie, his motives for wanting to win change. He no longer wants to win for himself. Instead, he wants to win to save Logan’s candy factory. This shift demonstrates Philip’s most drastic character shift. Where once he was selfish, by the end of the novel, he embraces friendship and demonstrates empathy. 

“I told you because I never had friends like you guys before. Friends who liked me for me, or at least as much of me as I could show you.”

Before entering the contest, Daisy intended to become a successful spy because she thought it’s who her parents and grandmother wanted her to be. However, after entering the contest and making genuine connections with kids her own age, she realizes that she doesn’t want to follow in her family’s footsteps. She wants to take a break from that life so that she can feel like a normal kid. She sees this as the only way that she can truly be close to others, something she truly desires.

“At those words, Logan felt a new determination rise up inside him. So what if he hadn’t always been the best at following through with things? So what if he sometimes got distracted and his attention wandered? Now was what mattered, and now he would give it all he had.” 

Before the contest, Logan was fascinated by the candy-making process, but he always feared that he didn’t have what it takes to be a real candy maker like his father. However, after he and the other contestants join together to save the candy factory, he realizes that he’s a lot stronger than he thinks. This confidence is a direct result of his newfound friends’ encouragement. 

“The thing about leaving something behind for the very last time is that you rarely realize you’re doing it.” 

Each of the four contestants experience personal growth throughout the course of the competition. Here, Logan is looking back on the time he spent working on his candy submission and realizes that things will be different after he leaves to present his candy. He realizes that he and his family may potentially lose the factory, and he’ll never be the same person he was before the competition began. This idea is symbolized in the metaphor of the butterfly. Logan is like the butterfly who only realizes he’s about to transform as it’s happening.

“Some people have scars on the inside, and other people’s scars are on the outside. It shouldn’t matter.” 

Logan doesn’t like being treated differently just because of his physical scars. This is especially true after he learns that the contest judges want to award him the prize if he’ll change the name of his submission. He realizes that they are making a special exception for him because they feel pity for him. Logan doesn’t view his scars as something to be pitied and instead recognizes that everyone has something difficult that they must deal with, whether it’s physical or emotional. 

“And that’s our secret ingredient. We put a little our ourselves into our chocolate.” 

The Candymaker’s secret ingredient is a source of pride and contention throughout the course of the contest. Logan feels proud of his father’s secret ingredient because he believes it’s what makes their candy so delicious. Meanwhile, Daisy desires to steal the secret ingredient to fulfill her spy mission, and Philip steals it in hopes of saving the factory from his father’s greedy grasp. However, by the end of the competition, the Candymaker’s revelation shows that all the scheming had been in vain. Ironically, the ingredient that had originally threatened to sink the factory brings the four competitors together as friends.