Chapter 1: Summary, Themes, and Analysis

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The chapter opens two years after the prologue’s lunch scene, on a brutally hot July Saturday in New York City. Nora Stephens walks with her pregnant sister, Libby, who is five months along with her third child. The heat is oppressive, and Nora’s internal monologue is wry and self-deprecating as she compares herself to a glazed donut left out in the sun.

Nora reflects on her recent breakup with Aaron, a man she dated for four months. Libby misremembers his name as Andrew, and Nora privately notes that she has actually been dumped four times, not three—she has never told Libby about Jakob, an ex from years ago connected to a painful trip to California.

As they walk, the sisters pass Freeman Books, the West Village bookstore they grew up above. The sight triggers a wave of nostalgia: Nora recalls the tiny apartment where their mother spun them through the kitchen singing “Baby Love,” the pink-and-cream floral couch, and the Katharine Hepburn movies they watched together. She admits that her current apartment was chosen specifically because it resembles that childhood home. The bookstore, she says, is her favorite place on earth, even though it’s also where their lives were torn apart twelve years ago when their mother died.

Libby spots a window display for Dusty Fielding’s runaway bestseller Once in a Lifetime, now with a movie tie-in cover. Libby is ecstatic—she loves the book—while Nora privately thinks, “Take that, Charlie Lastra,” remembering the colleague who once drove her to extreme unprofessionalism. Charlie now works at the publishing house that released Dusty’s book, surrounded by constant reminders of Nora’s success.

The conversation shifts back to Nora’s love life. Libby urges her to get back out there, and Nora jokes about the absurdities of dating—including a claim that thirty percent of her dates reveal foot, elbow, or kneecap fetishes. Libby, who met her husband Brendan at twenty, has never truly dated, and Nora teases her about it.

Libby grows short of breath and asks to sit. Nora notices new, worrying details: the drawn corners of Libby’s mouth, the thinning of her cheeks, her bitten-down nails. Libby admits she’s exhausted and needs a break. She proposes a trip—just the two of them—to escape their routines. Nora is hesitant, but Libby pleads, mentioning that she’s “three sleepless nights away from snapping.” Nora, who has always been incapable of saying no to her sister, agrees.

Libby then reveals she has already bought plane tickets to Asheville, North Carolina, the airport closest to a small town called Sunshine Falls. She calls it a “once-in-a-lifetime trip” and jokes that Nora will fall in love with a lumberjack. Nora groans, but the chapter ends with Libby laughing and embracing her, and Nora feeling a rush of relief that her sister seems like herself again.

Key Events

Nora and Libby walk through a sweltering New York City on a July Saturday.
Nora reveals (to the reader) that she has been dumped four times, not three, and that she has never told Libby about Jakob.
The sisters pass Freeman Books, the bookstore they grew up above, triggering nostalgia and grief over their mother’s death twelve years earlier.
Libby spots the display for Dusty Fielding’s Once in a Lifetime and is thrilled; Nora privately gloats about the book’s success, thinking of Charlie Lastra.
Libby’s exhaustion becomes visible, and Nora notices signs that her sister is struggling more than she lets on.
Libby proposes a sisters-only trip; Nora hesitates but agrees.
Libby reveals she already bought plane tickets to Asheville, North Carolina, near Sunshine Falls, calling it a “once-in-a-lifetime trip.”

Character Development

Nora emerges as a character defined by control and competence. She is a successful publishing professional who has built her life around predictability—her apartment mimics her childhood home, and she approaches dating with a checklist mentality (credit reports, psych evals, blood oaths). Yet beneath this armor, the chapter reveals deep vulnerability: she has been dumped four times, she carries guilt about Jakob, and she is haunted by the fear of losing Libby the way she lost their mother. Her instinct to “fix” things is on full display when she notices Libby’s exhaustion; her mind immediately spins toward solutions, from spa days to creative ways of supporting her sister financially.

Libby is presented as the warmer, more whimsical sister—the “Marianne to Nora’s Elinor.” But the chapter complicates this picture. Her pregnancy fatigue is real, but Nora senses something deeper: Libby seems distant, out of sync, and at her breaking point. The chapter hints that Libby has been hiding struggles of her own, and her desperate plea for a trip suggests she needs more than a vacation—she needs her sister back.

The chapter also establishes the sisters’ dynamic: Nora as the protector and fixer, Libby as the one who asks for what she needs, even when she has to push. Their banter is affectionate and sharp, but the undercurrent of worry is unmistakable.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

The bookstore as sanctuary and site of loss. Freeman Books represents both the warmth of Nora’s childhood—her mother’s love, the cozy apartment, the shared movies—and the moment her life fractured. It is a place of simultaneous comfort and grief, and Nora’s choice to recreate its aesthetic in her own apartment shows how she clings to the past while trying to move forward.

Sibling out-of-sync. The chapter’s central tension is the growing distance between Nora and Libby. Nora describes their former synchronicity—finishing each other’s thoughts, calling at the same moment—and contrasts it with the present, where they are “ships passing in the night.” This motif of disconnection drives the entire chapter and sets up the trip as an attempt to restore their bond.

The need for control. Nora’s personality is built on control: her dating criteria, her career success, her careful management of Libby’s wellbeing. The chapter shows how this need for control is both a strength and a vulnerability—it keeps her functional, but it also prevents her from truly seeing or addressing what Libby is going through.

Escape to a small town. Libby’s plan to go to Sunshine Falls introduces the novel’s central setting and its promise of a different kind of life. The trip is framed as an escape from the pressures of the city, work, and family obligations—a chance to be “just the two of us.”

Hidden struggles. Both sisters are hiding something: Nora hides the truth about Jakob and the full count of her breakups; Libby hides the depth of her exhaustion and whatever else is troubling her. The chapter establishes that neither sister is fully honest with the other, setting up the emotional work of the novel.

Why This Chapter Matters

This chapter is the novel’s true beginning, establishing the emotional stakes and the central relationship that will drive the story. It introduces the sisters’ dynamic—Nora the fixer, Libby the pleader—and plants the seeds of conflict: their growing distance, Libby’s hidden struggles, and Nora’s unresolved grief over their mother’s death.

The chapter also sets up the novel’s premise: the trip to Sunshine Falls, which will force Nora out of her carefully controlled life and into an unfamiliar small town. The mention of Charlie Lastra and the success of Dusty Fielding’s book foreshadows the professional and personal entanglements to come.

Most importantly, this chapter establishes the emotional core of the book: the bond between two sisters who love each other deeply but have drifted apart, and the lengths they will go to find their way back to each other.

Study Questions

Why does Nora keep the truth about Jakob from Libby, and what does this reveal about their relationship?

Nora’s decision to hide Jakob from Libby—and to conceal the true count of her breakups—shows that she protects her sister from painful truths, even at the cost of full honesty. It also suggests that Nora carries guilt or shame about that period of her life, and that she prefers to present a controlled, competent version of herself to Libby rather than a vulnerable one.

How does the description of Freeman Books function symbolically in this chapter?

Freeman Books represents both the warmth of Nora’s childhood and the site of her greatest loss. Her choice to recreate its aesthetic in her own apartment shows how she clings to the past, while her admission that it is “where our lives were torn in half” reveals the grief she still carries. The bookstore is a symbol of home, memory, and the complicated legacy of her mother’s death.

What does Libby’s insistence on the trip reveal about her state of mind?

Libby’s desperate plea for a trip—and her admission that she is “three sleepless nights away from snapping”—reveals that she is struggling more than she lets on. Her exhaustion, bitten-down nails, and drawn appearance suggest she is at a breaking point, and her decision to buy tickets before asking Nora shows how much she needs this escape. The trip is not just a vacation; it is a cry for help and a last attempt to reconnect with her sister before the new baby arrives.