Identity

Throughout the novel, the author uses Emma’s attempts to decide between a life with Jesse and a life with Sam in order to fuel her explorations concerning identity. At the start of section “Before, Emma and Jesse, Or, how to fall in love and fall to pieces,” the author introduces these notions via Emma’s adolescent relationships with her sister Marie, as well as with Jesse and Sam. As a teenager, Emma learns to shape her identity according to Marie. Instead of being who she wants to be, she adopts a version of self that is counter to Marie’s identity. It is not until she starts getting to know Sam that she realizes, “Maybe it was time to just…be myself” (26). Two years later, when Emma first starts conversing with Jesse, she is taken by the way he discusses his own identity: “Do you...