Audre & Bash are Just Friends

Audre’s self-help book serves as a motif that contributes to the theme of Learning to Embrace Authentic Experience. The main character sets out to write a book of advice for teenagers with the goal of impressing Stanford’s admissions board. However, what begins as a way for the overachiever to push herself to a new level of curated excellence becomes an opportunity for her to engage in authentic experiences. Williams also uses the self-help book to shape the novel’s structure. Audre seeks out Bash’s help because she doesn’t think that she can “write a book about living your best life without, well, living her own” (65). She initially accepts Reshma’s Experience Challenges in the hope that they will strengthen her writing, and completing the challenges with Bash gives her opportunities to live authentically and grow closer to her love interest.

Just as the self-help book shapes the novel’s love story, the love story shapes the self-help book. Audre originally calls her project 1, 2, 3, 4…THRIVE! A Teen’s Rules for Flourishing on This Dying Planet. This awkward working title illustrates how the teenager struggles to write the book when it’s structured as a curated list of rules for others.