Happy Place

Sabrina’s family cottage on Maine’s coast acts represents friendship, happiness, and nostalgia. As the site of the group’s yearly trip, the beautiful home symbolizes deepening friendships, joy, and fond memories. This is why Harriet, Wyn, Sabrina, Cleo, Parth, and Kimmy all feel the loss when Sabrina explains the house will be sold: “now this house—our house, this pocket of the universe where we always belong, where no matter what else is happening, we’re safe and happy—that’s going away” (21). This reaction shows that the friend groups worries that if summer trips to Maine end, so will an era of their friendship, one they will miss dearly.

The Maine cottage is also Harriet’s “happy place,” the location of many of her best memories. In fact, when Harriet meditates, she always pictures the Maine cottage with her friends—this is where she can most readily find inner peace.

The nonlinear timeline juxtaposes two motifs: the nostalgic happiness of the past and the conflicts of the present. In the present, chapters labeled “Real Life” describe an exhausted, hurt, angry, and deeply wounded Harriet. She can’t accept her situation—pursuing a medical career she hates, separated from Wyn despite still being in love, growing apart from her friends despite needing their support more than ever.