Call It What You Want

Analyze whether Sloane’s professional success as a writer represents a genuine break from her dependency on Ethan or paradoxically entangles her identity more deeply within their shared history.

Analyze how the novel uses Sloane’s relationship with Reese Thompson not just as a foil to Ethan, but as a direct challenge to Sloane’s own definition of love. How does her inability to feel “enough” with Reese reveal her conflation of emotional intensity with genuine intimacy?

The novel gradually reveals the details of Ethan’s traumatic past, first through his internal thoughts and later through Graham’s exposition. Analyze how this fragmented delivery of information shapes the reader’s empathy for Ethan and complicates judgment of his actions toward Sloane.