Honey

“It was not a particularly sensitive subject for Melody. The fact that she didn’t have a mother was simply that: a fact. She and her father were very close, and it had always been just the two of them.”

This quote establishes how Melody feels about the fact that she’s grown up without her mother, showing that it’s not something she thinks about or engages with regularly. This quote not only details Melody’s home life dynamics but also provides perspective on Melody’s outlook about her late mother at the beginning of the book—an outlook that morphs as the plot goes on.

“[H]is tendency to burn things wasn’t the only unusual thing she’d noticed about his behavior lately. He’d been whistling ‘You Are My Sunshine’ pretty much nonstop for weeks, and just that morning he’d let the bathtub overflow for the second time. More than once Melody had walked into a room and caught him staring off into space with a goofy-looking grin on his face. When she’d asked him what was going on, he’d acted like he had no idea what she was talking about. But Melody knew her father better than anyone. Something was definitely up.”

At the end of Chapter 1, Melody considers all the ways her father has been acting strangely for the last few weeks, providing evidence for why she believes he’s hiding something. His whistling of “You Are My Sunshine” and his “goofy-looking grin” suggest that he is in love with someone. This quote establishes one of the novel’s main mysteries and introduces The Problem of Family Secrets.

“As far as Melody could tell, her father never felt it was the right time or place to talk about her mother. Melody had once asked him to tell her about the day her mother had died. It was the first time she’d ever seen him cry, and she never brought up the subject again. Meanwhile, Melody’s father wasn’t the only one who avoided talking about her mother. She’d been the closest thing to a celebrity Royal, Indiana, had ever known, but nobody ever mentioned her name anymore—at least not around Melody.”

This excerpt provides more context for Melody’s seeming lack of connection to her mother. Melody has never known her mother in any capacity, not even through the people she left behind on earth. Melody’s lack of knowledge about her mother develops the theme of The Problem of Family Secrets, as her mother’s history remains mostly obscure to her.