Quiz Every Summer After Carley Fortune

Every Summer After Quiz

How well do you remember the lakeside summers, heartbreak, and healing in Every Summer After? This quiz spans the entire story, mixing multiple-choice and short-answer questions on plot, character motivation, symbols, and synthesis. Ready to test your knowledge?

For a deeper dive into the story, explore our full book guide, questions and answers, and ending explained.

Quiz Questions

Plot and Sequence (Questions 1–8)

1. Multiple Choice
What prompts Percy to return to Barry’s Bay after twelve years away?
A) A magazine assignment about small-town cottages
B) A nostalgic letter from Sam
C) Charlie calls to tell her that Sue has died
D) She inherits the family cottage

2. Multiple Choice
What is Percy’s job in Toronto when the present-day storyline begins?
A) Freelance horror writer
B) Senior editor at Shelter magazine
C) High school English teacher
D) Bookstore manager

3. Short Answer
When Sam takes Percy to the Florek Tavern for drinks after their reunion, an unexpected arrival ruins the intimate mood. Who shows up, and what happens to Percy shortly afterward?

4. Multiple Choice
What does Sam reveal while they are in his childhood bedroom after Sue’s wake?
A) He is moving back to Kingston permanently
B) He already knew Percy had slept with Charlie years ago
C) He plans to sell the cottage immediately
D) He had kept Percy’s writing a secret from Charlie

5. Short Answer
At the very end of the novel, what does Percy do on the dock to create their new beginning?

6. Multiple Choice
What object does Sam give thirteen-year-old Percy to seal their first friendship?
A) An autographed horror novel
B) A friendship bracelet
C) A silver necklace
D) A carved wooden box

7. Short Answer
Why does Percy refuse Sam’s Thanksgiving marriage proposal in the past timeline? Be specific.

8. Multiple Choice
After Percy first swims across the lake, what does Sue Florek tell her?
A) “You’re as much a daughter to me as my own blood”
B) “You swam faster than either of my boys”
C) “I’m as proud of you as a daughter”
D) “Now you truly belong to the lake”

Character Motivation (Questions 9–13)

9. Multiple Choice
Why does Sam stop their first passionate kiss when they are teenagers and say they should wait?
A) He wants to focus on medical school applications
B) He is afraid of ruining their friendship and believes they are too young
C) Sue ordered him to stay away from Percy
D) He had just started dating someone else

10. Short Answer
What combination of emotions and circumstances leads Charlie to sleep with Percy near the end of the summer before her final year of high school?

11. Multiple Choice
Why does Percy’s friendship with Delilah break apart after things fall apart with Sam?
A) Delilah secretly dated Sam behind Percy’s back
B) Delilah tells Percy that a drunk Sam hit on her, and Percy insults her and never apologizes
C) Delilah moves away and stops returning calls
D) Percy blames Delilah for introducing her to Mason

12. Short Answer
According to Charlie’s later revelation, what was Sue’s true wish for Percy after her death, and why?

13. Short Answer
What unresolved emotion most consistently triggers Percy’s panic attacks in the present-day timeline?

Theme and Symbolism (Questions 14–17)

14. Multiple Choice
The friendship bracelet Percy and Sam exchange in childhood evolves in meaning throughout the novel. By the epilogue, what does it primarily symbolize?
A) The burden of a childhood promise
B) A bond that can be repaired despite deep wounds
C) Sam’s possessiveness over Percy
D) The simplicity of platonic friendship

15. Short Answer
Swimming across the lake becomes a repeated ritual for Percy. Identify two emotional or symbolic functions that act serves in the novel.

16. Multiple Choice
The “magic hour” golden light Sue loved is revisited in the epilogue. What theme does that detail reinforce most strongly?
A) The impossibility of recapturing the past
B) The healing power of nature
C) Honoring memory and finding closure
D) The fleeting nature of summer romance

17. Short Answer
Sam kept a box of 93 horror movies he bought for Percy over the years they were apart. What does this collection reveal about his own emotional journey?

Synthesis Questions (Questions 18–20)

18. Short Answer
How does the novel’s dual timeline structure (alternating between past summers and the present funeral weekend) reinforce the theme of second chances?

19. Short Answer
Compare Percy’s coping strategies in the past (after Sam’s departure for the premed workshop) and in the present (before Sue’s funeral). What unhealthy pattern emerges?

20. Short Answer
Charlie is often a catalyst in both the central conflict and the resolution. Explain briefly how his actions cause Percy and Sam’s breakup and later make their reconciliation possible.

Answer Key

  1. C – Charlie calls to tell her that Sue has died. This news, delivered in Chapter 1, shatters Percy’s carefully maintained distance and pulls her back to the lake. (Distractors: The book never mentions a magazine assignment, a nostalgic letter, or an inheritance.)

  2. B – Percy is a senior editor at Shelter magazine, a detail established in Chapter 3. She is good at her job but has left behind her childhood dream of writing fiction. (Distractors: Freelance horror writer is something she might have become but didn’t; teacher and bookstore manager are never mentioned as her career.)

  3. Taylor, Sam’s girlfriend of over two years, arrives at the tavern. Percy, overwhelmed by emotion and alcohol, vomits shortly afterward, and Taylor drives them back to the motel. This moment underscores the messy reality of Sam’s new life and the tension Percy felt trying to reconnect.

  4. B – Sam confesses he already knew she had slept with Charlie. This revelation, in Chapter 17, transforms Percy’s guilt into a shared burden; Sam had been carrying the secret for years, which explains some of his earlier coldness.

  5. Percy proposes to Sam using a ring made of twisted embroidery floss, inside an old wooden box with her initials. The gesture appears in the Epilogue, turning the bracelet symbolism into a permanent, adult commitment.

  6. B – A friendship bracelet. In Chapter 4, Sam asks for one exactly like hers, and they vow on the matching bracelets. This token becomes the physical anchor for their relationship. (Distractors: An autographed horror novel is a gift later; a silver necklace is from Mason; a carved wooden box holds the ring at the end.)

  7. Percy refuses because she slept with Charlie earlier that summer and cannot bring herself to tell Sam. The proposal comes at Thanksgiving after Sam declares he wants Percy to be his family; her hidden betrayal makes her feel unworthy, so she gives a vague reason and asks for a break.

  8. C – “I’m as proud of you as a daughter,” Sue says while making a celebratory breakfast. This moment (Chapter 8) cements Sue’s surrogate-mother role. (Distractors: The other options are never spoken by Sue in that scene.)

  9. B – Sam tells Percy he worries about ruining their friendship and thinks they are too young. In Chapter 10, after their first real kiss, he admits the kiss was incredible but wants to wait so they don’t rush and risk losing what they have. (Distractors: Medical school pressure, Sue’s order, and another girlfriend are not the reasons given.)

  10. Charlie sleeps with Percy out of a combination of attraction, opportunity, and a desire to comfort her. Percy is reeling from Sam’s emotional absence and the news that a girl named Jo answered his phone. Charlie’s flirtation escalates after a drive-in, and in a moment of vulnerability, Percy seeks physical reassurance, leading to the night she immediately regrets.

  11. B – Delilah tells Percy that a heavily intoxicated Sam hit on her at a party. Percy accuses Delilah of flirting and calls her “a bit slutty,” then never apologizes. This betrayal severs their friendship (Chapter 18). (Distractors: Delilah didn’t secretly date Sam; she didn’t disappear; Mason was introduced but that wasn’t the direct cause of the break with Delilah.)

  12. Sue wanted Percy to come back after her death because she knew Sam would need her. Charlie reveals this in Chapter 19: Sue had known about the betrayal all along and believed Percy’s return was necessary for Sam’s healing. Sue’s wisdom about the depth of their bond transcended even the scandal.

  13. Unresolved guilt and the suppressed memory of having betrayed Sam are the core triggers. The panic attacks began after Percy slept with Charlie and worsened when she lost both Sam and the cottage. In the present, the funeral-weekend confrontations with Sam and the past bring the anxiety roaring back.

  14. B – The bracelet represents a bond that can endure betrayal and be repaired. By the epilogue, Sam tying his faded bracelet on Percy’s wrist and Percy proposing with a floss ring show that the connection is not broken but remade. (Distractors: Burden, possessiveness, and platonic simplicity miss the central redemptive arc.)

  15. Swimming across the lake functions as (1) a physical metaphor for overcoming emotional obstacles and proving her strength, and (2) a ritual of release—coping with anxiety, processing grief, or reclaiming her sense of self. Examples: as a teenager she trains to cope with Sam’s distance, and the repeated crossings signal personal growth.

  16. C – Honoring memory and finding closure. Sue loved the golden evening light, and the brothers choose that hour to scatter her ashes, turning a moment of loss into a meaningful, peaceful goodbye. (Distractors: While healing, nature, and transience are present, the scene is explicitly about a scheduled, deliberate act of remembrance.)

  17. The collection reveals Sam’s enduring love and inability to let go. By buying every horror movie she mentioned or might like, he maintained an invisible string to Percy even during the years of silence. The unopened movies symbolize his frozen emotional state, and sharing them again becomes a quiet act of reconnection.

  18. The dual timeline allows readers to see both the innocent foundation of Percy and Sam’s bond and the adult wreckage, making the possibility of forgiveness feel earned. The past explains why the present hurts so deeply, and the intercutting shows that the same people who hurt each other are still capable of growth and love.

  19. In the past, Percy coped with Sam’s distance by acting out—sleeping with Charlie, pushing Delilah away, and burying her pain in numbness (the “fog”). In the present, she uses busyness, career, and casual relationships to avoid facing her grief and panic. In both timelines, she runs from emotional pain rather than confronting it directly, a pattern that only breaks when she finally confesses.

  20. Charlie’s sleeping with Percy is the immediate cause of the breakup and Percy’s refusal of Sam’s proposal. Yet years later, Charlie’s insistence that Sue wanted Percy back and his earlier revelation to Sam of the truth enable the couple to finally speak honestly. Without Charlie’s role as both betrayer and truth-teller, the reconciliation would have remained impossible.

Ready to revisit every emotional twist? Check out the full Every Summer After guide or the complete ending explained.