Wealth, Fitting In, and Bullying Theme Analysis

Part of the reason that 16-year-old Jessie struggles so much in her new home after Dad remarries is because she moves from a suburban public high school outside of Chicago to Wood Valley High School in Los Angeles an elite private school that educates the children of wealthy film and tech moguls. This culture shock means that Jessie is, for much of the novel, a fish out of water at her new school, even as she also recognizes that some aspects of high school—such as the prevalence of bullying and the desire to fit in—remain the same no matter where she is. The novel suggests that while it may be normal to want to fit in, bullying is different and more cutthroat when one doesn’t have the wealth to do so—and when the bully in question isn’t just wealthy but is also politically powerful at one’s school. However, the novel also suggests that even if a bully is safe from punishment by adult authority figures, it’s still possible to dethrone them if their peers band together and refuse to put up with their bad behavior.

In Chicago, Jessie had what she believes was a normal time in high school. She’s a self-professed nerd, which meant that she wasn’t cool—but she had her best friend, Scarlett, and she wasn’t so low in the school pecking order as to be bullied. Starting at Wood Valley High School in Los Angeles, however, shows Jessie that her experience in Chicago isn’t the experience of every high school student in America. At Wood Valley, it’s cool to be smart: students spend their summers building schools in rural African villages or interning at Google to beef up their college applications, and so the school sends about five kids to Harvard every year. To help Jessie navigate the landscape of Wood Valley, an anonymous boy who calls himself Somebody Nobody, or SN, begins emailing Jessie with tidbits of advice. Jessie initially refuses his help—in addition to being suspicious of anonymous emails, she figures that aside from the higher socioeconomic level of the student body, Wood Valley can’t be all that different from home. However, she eventually accepts SN’s help when two popular blonde girls, Gem and Crystal, begin to bully her—and as Ethan, Jessie’s partner for an English project, announces that he’ll do the project alone, put her name on it, and get her an A. Jessie’s plea for help is, in its most basic form, a plea to help her figure out how to fit in—how to avoid being a target for Gem and Crystal and how to navigate a culture that’s entirely different from her own. Additionally, Jessie wants to find a place for herself in that culture, which is unwelcoming since everyone else at Wood Valley has been going to school together since kindergarten.

Though Jessie doesn’t dwell on it, one of the major reasons that she’s a target at school is because she sticks out as being middle class in an environment where only a few kids share her socioeconomic status. Everyone else, in her assessment, runs around with designer bags, slim laptops, and luxury cars, while Jessie has none of these things. While at first the bullying that Jessie suffers centers mostly on how quaint she seems to Gem and Crystal, the tenor and intensity changes when Gem suddenly perceives Jessie as a threat. Jessie works with and is friendly with Gem’s boyfriend, Liam, who is clueless about his girlfriend’s nastiness and thus makes the mistake of talking to Jessie in front of Gem at a party. It seems likely that Gem would react badly to Liam speaking to any girl other than her—but because Gem believes that Jessie isn’t good enough, wealthy enough, or pretty enough to be worthy of her boyfriend’s attention, she treats Jessie with even more vitriol than she might otherwise. She trips Jessie, loudly whispers insults, and runs into her—all within earshot or in front of teachers. However, because Gem’s father is one of the school’s biggest donors, even Jessie’s favorite teacher, Mrs. Pollack, doesn’t feel like she’s able to do anything to help. It doesn’t matter that Gem is violating the school’s no-tolerance policy toward bullying—because of who her father is, Gem is untouchable.

Things only begin to improve for Jessie when, with the help of SN, time, and her stepbrother Theo, she starts to fit in a little better. SN helps her by giving her a place to vent and be upset, and as time goes on, Jessie manages to steel herself more successfully against Gem’s attacks. Things especially turn a corner when Theo, who’s in the same grade but who had previously been unwilling to so much as notice Jessie in the hallways, calls Gem out for pushing Jessie. As Jessie begins to fit in more with her family, it becomes easier to fit in at school—despite her refusal to wear designer clothing.

Theo’s choice to stand up for Jessie also reflects his changing thoughts on class and fitting in. While he was initially enraged to hear that Jessie’s dad, a pharmacist, was going to get a job at a pharmacy near school—pharmacists, in his view, are embarrassingly middle class—his choice to stand up for Jessie suggests that he’s reevaluated this belief, at least enough to be willing to stand up for his stepsister. As rude as Theo’s embarrassment about Dad’s job may be, it also suggests that he’s going through exactly the same thing that Jessie is. He wants to fit in like everyone else and avoid the bullying that comes with standing out, especially in a way that signals that he’s not as wealthy as his peers. Though the novel offers no real remedies for bullying, especially when it comes to bullying about class and wealth, Theo’s change in heart suggests that bullying can be stopped when kids choose to stand up for each other and create an environment that doesn’t allow bullies to rule without consequences.