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33. Chaos Theory; Olly’s Formula
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Everything, Everything, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Coming of Age
Trust and Lies
Family, Abuse, and Bravery
The Value of Experience
Summary
Analysis
As Maddy watches Mission: Impossible, Carla says that Mom wants to know if Carla has noticed anything different about Maddy. Maddy ignores Carla and then flippantly asks if she has noticed anything. Carla pauses the movie and says that it was a mistake to let Maddy see Olly. She asks if Maddy canceled a movie night with Mom. Maddy thinks that her mom looked extremely hurt and disappointed, but she didn’t want to wait until nine p.m. to talk to Olly. Carla says that Mom also thinks that Maddy is distracted and she’s concerned that Maddy bought a lot of clothes. Maddy asks if Mom suspects, but Carla says this isn’t the point—Mom is lonely. Carla forbids Maddy from seeing Olly again and says that once Olly goes back to school, he’ll find a girlfriend.
Even if it appears that Carla is on Mom’s side here, it’s also worth keeping in mind that if Mom catches onto what’s happening, she’d certainly put a stop to it. In this sense, Carla is trying to do Maddy a favor by impressing upon her that if she wants to keep secretly seeing Olly, she needs to make it look to Mom as though there’s nothing amiss. While possibly kind in some sense, this also suggests that Carla doesn’t believe Maddy will ever be able to break free from Mom, a reality that holds sinister implications for Maddy’s adult life.
Themes
Carla gets up to leave and Maddy asks if love really won’t kill her. Carla says it won’t, but it might kill Mom. She relents and agrees to let Maddy see Olly again. Maddy spends the next day alone. She can’t decide if she’s angry with Carla and she’s suddenly worried that Mom might not want her to have any secrets. She knows that Mom isn’t upset about the new clothes; rather, Mom is upset that Maddy didn’t consult her and bought clothes that she didn’t expect. Maddy does know that Mom isn’t wrong, but she also thinks that it’s normal to grow apart as she grows up. Regardless, Maddy still feels guilty since Mom has devoted her entire life to keeping her safe. Later, Maddy receives an email approving her application for a credit card.
It’s pretty clear that Mom indeed doesn’t want Maddy to have secrets or change as she grows up, given her sense of betrayal that Maddy bought clothes without asking and that Maddy seemingly wants to spend more time alone. It’s likely that Maddy knows that growing apart from a parent is normal in part because of what she’s learned from books, which shows that there are meaningful things to learn from reading. But again, learning something from books isn’t the same as experiencing it firsthand.
Themes
