48 pages • 1 hour read
Ali HazelwoodBride
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Children
Children symbolize unification in the world of the novel. Ana, Misery as a child, and other children are used to emphasize unification between species in both positive and negative ways.
Ana is a positive symbol of the potential unity that can happen between the warring factions in the novel. The successful product of a Human and Were, she is living proof that the species can exist together. Because of this, she is fiercely protected, and just as adamantly sought after to be destroyed. Protecting or destroying her reflects the maintenance or destruction of alliances between the species.
As Collateral for the Vampyres in her childhood, Misery was a living symbol of the unity between species. She was no longer thought of as a living, breathing child, but as a relic. In this way, she was denied her own childhood. While she was technically a symbol of unity, Misery experienced isolation from both her community and true identity. Mick’s son is another child who illustrates the negativity of political conflict, as he is used to divide and destroy an otherwise unified pack.
Contacts and Filed Fangs
Misery uses contacts to hide her Vampyre eyes and files her fangs to make them look Human. This indicates that she has not accepted her true identity. Rejection and disgust from all sides make it preferable for her to hide. She also struggles to repress her deeper instincts—the intense love that she denies feeling, the desire to bite, the way blood smells. Finding Ana and Lowe, who like her Vampyre traits, helps her to stop denying who she truly is. In this way, the novel hints at the importance of friendship and community.
Peanut Butter
Misery’s love of peanut butter is shameful to her, as Vampyres look down on eating as superfluous and indulgent. Because it’s unnecessary, it is pure pleasure. Misery eating the peanut butter symbolizes the progress she’s making in stepping outside of the boundaries put up by her own kind and embracing something she knows she enjoys. It is a sign that she is forming her own identity and accepting herself. It also reflects how she is opening up to the possibility of sexual pleasure, as her union with Lowe wouldn’t be expected to create offspring. Like eating, sex would be just for fun.
Henry poisons the symbol of Misery’s growing autonomy. He is punishing her for daring to be herself, to be different and to accept that there are other ways of living that she can enjoy.
Related Titles
By Ali Hazelwood
