65 pages • 2 hours read
Emily RathPucking Sweet
Emily RathFiction | Novel | Adult | 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
Emergency Contacts
Being listed as one another’s emergency contact becomes one of the ways that Poppy, Colton, and Lukas express their affection for one another at different points of their relationship, and the issue is a motif that illustrates their changing relationships throughout the novel. In the first half of the novel, Colton and Lukas have an uneasy friendship, one where their level of care remains unspoken, even in a platonic sense. When Lukas admits that he listed Colton as his emergency contact, however, Colton realizes both that Lukas cares about their friendship more than his playful demeanor reveals and that Lukas does not have anyone more important in his life. Friendship proves to be the first step for Colton and Lukas’s relationship, both with each other and with Poppy. Lukas is particularly unable to express how close he feels to Colton and uses the revelation about his emergency contact listing to communicate how deeply he values their relationship.
Later, after the three are in a confirmed romantic relationship, being listed on official forms—including emergency contact forms—emerges as a way for the trio to show their commitment while legal marriage is unavailable to them. When Colton reveals that he has put Poppy first on his list, and Lukas second (though he jokes that Poppy can never reveal this order to Lukas), he does so to signify their importance to him while also illustrating that he knows his partners well. Recognizing that Poppy is a more responsible person in an emergency than Lukas does not mean that Colton loves him less; joking about it reveals that Colton and Poppy know and love Lukas just the way he is. This also foreshadows the novel’s climax, in which Poppy and Colton are simultaneously hospitalized and Lukas is pulled between his emergency contact duties to each of them.
Poppy’s Granola
Poppy is an avid baker, and one of her favorite things to bake is granola. The granola reminds her of her late grandmother, the one person in her family to have treated her with love and respect, and for her, is a symbol of positive and supportive family relationships. As the novel continues, making the granola becomes part of the act of family building for Poppy; when she first gives it to Colton, it foreshadows the relationship between them. When Colton asks to learn how to make the granola himself, he shows himself as eager to engage in the things that are important to Poppy—attention and respect, which her birth family has denied her.
Between Lukas and Colton, Poppy’s granola marks their shift from rivals for Poppy’s affection to two men determined to love her together. When they first begin to court her, they are jealous over the treat—Colton resents sharing the snack with Lukas, which makes Lukas desire to take it from Colton. Once they unite in their intention to date her together, however, they share the snack amiably, a reflection of the evolution of their relationships with each other and Poppy. The granola therefore becomes an illustration of their ability to see affection as something that is not a limited resource, which brings them closer together—to Poppy and each other.
Lukas’s House
Lukas’s house is a recurring motif in the novel that parallels his character arc as he grows to understand and accept a new definition of family. At the beginning of the narrative, Lukas’s house is unfurnished and undecorated—although he wants a family, because of his upbringing, he has no idea what goes into creating one. Though he frames his house’s unfinished state as a practical measure because of the possibility of being traded, the novel suggests that this choice has more to do with his anxieties about emotional intimacy.
When Poppy and Colton successfully goad him into decorating his home, this indicates his growing affection for them, as he lets them help him further settle into and commit to his home. In addition, Colton’s increasing involvement in the decorating process suggests a deepening emotional intimacy, even though Lukas does not immediately recognize it. He insists that he is letting Colton handle the renovations for purely practical reasons, but as Colton points out later, they were building a home to live in together.
After he temporarily breaks up with Colton and Poppy, Lukas considers selling his house. This inclination highlights his new understanding that the home is for their family and that without them, it holds no meaning for him. However, the house also becomes a way for him to get back together with Colton, as Colton moves in and uses their physical proximity to work his way past Lukas’s walls. In addition, when Lukas decides to make amends with Poppy, he uses the house to do so. He builds a nursery for their child to signify that he intends to be a committed partner to Poppy and Colton and a committed father to their son. Once he does so, the protagonists all move into the home permanently, whereupon they officially stop considering it Lukas’s house and consider it their home instead, the final manifestation of their fully realized family.
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