51 pages • 1 hour read
Colleen HooverLayla
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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The Transcendental Nature of Soulmates
A major theme of Layla is that it is possible to find a soulmate whose love transcends the boundaries of the physical world. When two people have this kind of deep connection, their souls will find and recognize each other against all odds.
Leeds thinks that his relationship with Layla is falling apart after she is shot by Sable because she no longer possesses the essence that he fell in love with. The concept of soulmates and the ability to recognize such a spirit independently of their body is reinforced by the way Leeds falls in love with Willow. At first, he feels guilty because he thinks he is falling for a different person and drifting away from Layla. But when he realizes that Willow was Layla all along, he is vindicated in that he recognized her spirit.
This kind of love is contrasted with other relationships, such as Aspen and Chad’s, which seems comparatively mundane and shallow. Layla and Leeds show disdain toward them, especially Chad. Every time they share a scene with Leeds and Layla, they talk about drinking and having sex while the other couple is dealing with bigger problems. Their relationship serves as a sometimes humorous foil to Leeds and Layla.
Hoover also contrasts Leeds’s relationship with Layla to that with Sable, which was toxic and unhealthy. They began dating because Sable was obsessed with Leeds, and he soon realized he needed to end the relationship. Sable continued stalking him until she had to be escorted out of his band’s show and banned from future ones. With Sable inhabiting her body, he questions his feelings for Layla. The contrast continues when Willow enters Layla’s body and Leeds immediately feels more relaxed and attracted to her.
Existence of Multiple Realms of Being
The idea that multiple realms of being exist beyond physical life is a central theme in Layla. Before Willow is even introduced in the novel, Leeds and Layla discuss whether they believe there is life after death. Layla says she believes that life is a “series of realms” (22) and that being in the womb, life, and heaven are just a few of the possible realms in which one could exist. She believes that when a being moves from one realm to the other, they don’t remember the previous one. Through this discussion, Layla describes her belief in an afterlife but not one that is necessarily in line with a specific religion.
This discussion foreshadows Layla being shot and killed by Sable. Her spirit leaves her body and enters a liminal realm between life and death in the few minutes before she is revived. Understanding that spirits can exist independently of bodies is essential to the way Leeds and Layla figure out how to set things right. The novel proves Layla’s thesis is correct in that both Willow and UndercoverInc are spirits who have detached from their bodies. Now that Willow is in a new realm, she doesn’t realize that she’s Layla’s spirit. As Layla says in Chapter 1, when one moves into a new realm, they don’t remember anything about the previous one. Similarly, UndercoverInc does not have a name other than his forum username now that he is in the spirit realm. He is wearing a shirt with the name “Randall” on it, but only because that is the person whose body he slipped into on the way to the interview.
This idea of multiple realms of existence can give hope to many people who have lost a loved one; it is comforting to know that one is never totally gone. However, the central conflict of the book is how to deal with beings in the spiritual realm who become mismatched from their original bodies. Willow’s lack of memory makes this more difficult for Leeds to untangle because he does assume at first that Willow is Layla. He thinks she may be Sable. Layla’s theory of realms creates the story world for the plot as well as the central conflict between Leeds and the woman he loves.
Decision-Making and Ethical Ambiguity
Because Leeds is the first-person narrator, much of the novel is his internal monologue about whether he is making the wrong decisions and what kind of person that makes him. Rather than concluding whether he is doing something wrong by cheating on Layla with a ghost, Leeds avoids the conundrum because Layla (and Willow) were the same person all along.
Throughout most of the book, Leeds is laden with guilt about putting Layla in danger, falling out of love with her, falling in love with Willow, encouraging Willow to use Layla’s body, and, finally, holding Layla against her will in the house while he and Willow try to get help from UndercoverInc.
Leeds frequently acknowledges he’s done something wrong and feels ashamed about it, but he also defends himself by saying that there is no guidance for how a human should interact with ghosts. He vacillates quickly and frequently between these two perspectives on ethics. He says, “This whole thing feels wrong, but how does one properly interact with a ghost? It’s not like there’s a handbook, or people who could tell me if what I’m doing is morally corrupt” (149). He would like to be told by someone if he is behaving correctly, but his conscience and instincts tell him that it is wrong to pursue a relationship with Willow.
When UndercoverInc helps him discover that Willow is Layla, Leeds is relieved because he had been falling in love with the same woman he’d already loved and was not committing infidelity as he thought he was. He says, “That guilt is gone now. I feel justified. Every choice I made…every feeling Willow filled me with…it was all justified, because my soul was already in love with hers” (253). This seems to absolve him, but it does not change the fact that when he thought Willow was someone else, he continued to spend time with her against his better judgment. Nor does it change the fact that he tied Layla’s body to a bed and held her against her will; he does not seem to feel remorse for tying her up when it was Sable’s spirit within the body.
Hoover raises these ethical questions and problems but does not completely resolve them; the reader must use their judgment to decide whether Leeds acted appropriately at different points in the novel.
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By Colleen Hoover
