Anastasia’s experience with first love in Chapter 4 exemplifies Coping with Complex Emotions. Much like her decision to become Catholic, deciding she’s in love is based on an incomplete understanding of the emotion, shown by how she uses a Cosmopolitan article to make this choice. This does not mean Anastasia’s emotions are any less valid—only that she is again caught up in The Pressure to Act in the Face of Uncertainty. Washburn’s character represents an outdated view of African American youth and culture. His troublemaker persona and hip-wiggling walk are stereotypes that have perpetuated ideas of young Black men as rulebreakers and led to racial disparities in American culture. While Anastasia’s decision to style her hair like Washburn’s and replicate his walk are made out of a desire to get his attention, they can also be seen as a form of discrimination, though they are not meant to be such. Rather, they are Lowry’s way of showing how Anastasia deals with the feelings she has for Washburn, and Washburn’s reaction triggers a new flurry of emotions—namely disappointment and embarrassment. Writing how much she hates him in the green notebook is another example of how Anastasia uses the book as an outlet for her emotions. There is no specific significance to the number 43, but it does show that Anastasia wrote down her feelings many times, which shows how much this moment has affected her.

These chapters dig deeper into Anastasia’s relationship with her grandmother and, more specifically, with how she feels about her grandmother’s illness, representing the theme of coping with complex emotions. Anastasia’s grandmother exhibits the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, specifically forgetfulness of current events and a clear-eyed memory on the past. In Chapter 1, Anastasia shied away from calling Mrs. Westvessel “old” because doing so made her uncomfortable with thoughts of her grandmother. In these chapters, Anastasia can no longer hide from those emotions and is forced to deal with them as she spends time with her grandmother. As before, her grandmother triggers a host of emotions—including fear, sorrow, and frustration. Anastasia is frightened by her grandmother’s illness because she doesn’t understand why her grandmother can’t remember. To cover this fear, Anastasia gets frustrated about her grandmother forgetting things like Anastasia’s name and that Anastasia’s father is a grown-up, not a child. When Anastasia finds herself comforted by her grandmother, this also brings up feelings of guilt because Anastasia doesn’t want to be scared or frustrated, but neither can she stop feeling these emotions. At the end of Chapter 6, Anastasia finally understands she’s sad because she wants her grandmother to get better but knows this won’t happen. Anastasia’s mother admitting she experiences similar emotions is a turning point for Anastasia. Up until now, Anastasia thought her complicated emotions were a product of her being young and unintelligent. In truth, age has little to do with complicated emotions, and this realization gives Anastasia permission to feel how she feels. This emotional journey highlights how emotions are not always clear and how complex situations can tangle several emotions until they are difficult to tell apart.

The exploration of memory and emotion continues in Chapter 7 with the discussion about the poem Anastasia’s father reads in class. The class itself offers a juxtaposition to the seriousness with which Anastasia and her father treat the poem, and Lowry also uses this moment to poke fun at first-year college literature students, particularly just before holiday break. Rather than engaging with the material, the students make up responses with weak justifications, which frustrates Anastasia’s father. Thus, his discussion with Anastasia is the true analysis of the poem, which shows how Anastasia possesses understanding beyond her years. The poem also represents the frantic nature of youth. While Anastasia is interested by the concept of memories as happiness, this also makes her feel as though she must rush to make memories because she is so young and hasn’t done so yet. Going into the final section of the book, this realization makes Anastasia seek out new experiences, even if they aren’t ones she necessarily wants to have. As Anastasia concludes at the end of Chapter 7, memories are also the difference between herself and her grandmother. While Anastasia doesn’t have memories to relive to find happiness, her grandmother lives only in her happy memories, and those keep her content even as the present eludes her. Together, Anastasia and her grandmother highlight the different role memory plays at different points in life.