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37. Research; Kissing Primers 1, 2, 3
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
Olly is on the couch when Maddy comes into the sunroom the next day. She feels compelled to be close to him, but she’s uncertain. He compliments her orange shirt and asks if he should move. In response, Maddy sits down about a foot away from him. She takes his hand and they scoot in close to each other. Maddy feels her whole body light up and wonders how normal people keep from touching each other all the time. Olly pulls on Maddy’s hand and kisses her gently. Maddy thinks he tastes like caramel and sunshine, though she’s never tasted either. When they pull apart, she asks if it’s always like this. He says it’s never like this, and everything changes instantly.
That the kiss feels different for Olly, too, offers hope that as he and Maddy grow closer to each other, Olly will begin to look at the healthy relationship he has with Maddy and think critically about his parents’ wildly unhealthy marriage. Note, too, that though Carla insists Maddy and Olly don’t touch, she also doesn’t supervise them and enforce the rule. This suggests that she knows full well that they’re going to touch anyway, but feels it’s a reasonable and expected risk for Maddy to take.
Themes
