My Friends

“[She] can see inside people, so she painted the guards as jellyfish. Because jellyfish, like guards, have neither backbones nor brains.”

Louisa’s comparison of the guards to jellyfish is a critique of power without substance—saying they are spineless calls out their cowardice and lack of independent thought. Louisa’s experience of trauma has given her the ability to quickly assess other people. This development of her emotional intelligence will be important later when she meets Ted and must trust him despite her inclination to distrust adults.

“This is a painting of laughter, and you can only understand that if you’re full of holes, because then laughter is a small treasure.”

This quote speaks to the idea that joy means more when you’ve known pain, asserting that only those who have suffered deeply can appreciate pure joy. Louisa correctly identifies that the joy shared between friends in the picture is hard-won, the kind that shines brighter because of the darkness around it. She understands instinctively, because of her own background, that the painting is about resilience, about finding something beautiful in the wreckage.

“[O]ur teenage years have to simultaneously be the brightest light and the darkest depths, because that’s how we learn to figure out our horizons.”

This passage captures the highs and lows of adolescence, a time when everything feels both thrilling and overwhelming. The novel highlights that it is through the emotional extremes of love, loss, confusion, and wonder that young people begin to understand themselves and the world. Identity emerges from surviving chaos and discovering what truly matters, and with the stories of