All That Life Can Afford

London, England, is symbolic of Anna’s desires and dreams. Anna has longed to travel to England ever since she was a little girl. “When [she] was old enough to read real books at the library,” she would disappear “to mythical lands: danc[ing] at court with Lancelot and King Arthur, woo[ing] Maid Marian with Robin Hood, step[ing] lightly off a London windowsill with only Peter Pan’s hand to fly me” (13). Therefore, Anna associates England with the fantasies of her childhood. Shortly before the novel’s start, she moves overseas to London in an attempt to realize these girlhood dreams. She hopes that living here will alter her life, erase her past, and remake her into a storybook heroine.

Anna is so desperate for her new overseas environment to change her life that she sacrifices her authenticity to inhabit a fabricated version of reality. With Theo, Faye, Tess, Callum, and their friends, Anna thinks that she can gain acceptance amongst London’s wealthy, elite upper-class citizens. Their luxurious version of the city offers Anna an illusory sense of belonging in the fanciful and storied worlds of her books. By the novel’s end, she realizes that London can still be a place where she realizes her dreams and desires, but she must do so on her own terms—finding true belonging rather than the