Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Looking for Alibrandi, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Family
Identity, Freedom, and Coming of Age
The Immigrant Experience
Gossip and Appearances
Social Status and Wealth
Love and Relationships
Summary
Analysis
For five days, Josie resents that the sun is shining. She takes two naps per day and sits in front of the fan in her underwear. Finally, she agrees to go get pizza with Lee, Anna, and Sera to celebrate the end of exams. To console Josie, Sera says that she and Angelo aren’t really together. Josie whispers that she doesn’t want to talk about it. Anna reassures Josie that she and Jacob might still get back together someday, but Lee disagrees. Josie shakes her head and asks Anna how things are going with Anton. Anna says they’re going to each other’s formals, and her mother adores him. Josie sobs that Mama loved Jacob and apologizes for crying.
The breakup with Jacob is clearly changing Josie’s life in every conceivable way. Losing her first great love shows Josie that relationships don’t always last forever—even if they seem great and make her happy while they last. Though Josie isn’t really in a place to consider it yet, this starts to suggest that relationships don’t have to last forever to be meaningful. Indeed, Mama and Michael’s relationship didn’t last forever—but it was still a major defining relationship in their lives.
Themes
Sera pesters Anna for more details. Blushing, Anna says that she and Anton have only kissed, and he’s told her she doesn’t need makeup. Sera says that all men say that—and then they all puke at the sight of a woman without makeup. After an awkward silence, Lee says she slept with a guy last night. It didn’t hurt, but it didn’t feel good either. Lee explains that because of that, she can’t see why sex is a sin since it wasn’t pleasurable. Josie suggests that guilt is a sin, not pleasure. But Sera snaps that Lee shouldn’t feel guilty—and maybe if Josie had slept with Jacob, they’d still be together.
The vast differences in how Anna, Sera, Josie, and Lee are conducting their romantic relationships is another clue that relationships don’t have to look a certain way to be valuable. Anna seems perfectly happy kissing Anton, while Sera seems to enjoy her more freewheeling relationships. But Sera also suggests that she sees sex as a tool women can use to keep men in relationships. Mama and Michael’s—and Nonna and Marcus Sandford’s—relationships all ending suggests this isn’t actually true.
Themes
Lee shrugs that sex probably wouldn’t have changed things between Josie and Jacob, if only because Josie would be too guilty now to enjoy anything. Josie sighs that she might still be with Jacob if they’d had sex—but she’d also probably need a therapist. Everyone laughs and Sera insists that sex gets better. Anna worries that she’ll get married and find out she’s terrible in bed, but Sera says that’s exactly why she thinks people need to have sex before marriage.
It is, of course, impossible to know if Josie and Jacob would still be together had they had sex. But again, Josie has seen it play out twice that sex doesn’t guarantee a couple will stay together—and not staying together doesn’t make a relationship less meaningful. Indeed, Josie’s mourning a relationship that’s over and didn’t include sex; this on its own illustrates how important her relationship with Jacob was to her.
Themes
When the girls finish their pizza, Sera and Anna walk ahead and Lee hangs back with Josie. Lee insists that Josie did the right thing by not having sex with Jacob. She says Josie’s different; she could make being a virgin look “trendy.” They laugh about Anna’s nervousness and then, seriously, Josie asks if Lee really thinks sex wouldn’t have a made a difference for her and Jacob. Lee sighs that losing your virginity is just a reason to go confession every year; it’s not a big deal. But she acknowledges that it’s a loss of innocence, and she wishes she was a little girl again.
When Lee commends Josie for not having sex with Jacob, it’s essentially one more person telling her that she’s doing the right thing by standing up for her beliefs and not caving to unwanted pressure. This also shows that coming of age can look very different for different people. While Lee characterizes losing her virginity as the thing that catapults her into adulthood, Josie feels like standing up for her own choices makes her an adult.
Themes
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