My Life with the Walter Boys

“So that’s really why they lost my sympathy vote. There was no preparation—or even thinking, for that matter. They just did, regardless of the consequences. When you don’t plan ahead, things get messy. And after what happened three months ago, after my life was completely thrown off course, a messy love life was the last thing I needed.”

The Shakespearean tragedy Romeo and Juliet is an important motif within the text, and Jackie’s reaction to the play’s narrative is an important aspect of her characterization. Jackie finds Romeo and Juliet’s actions unworthy of sympathy because they acted on passion and impulse rather than reason. In contrast, Jackie sees herself as a practical person whose actions are deliberate and well-thought-out. This quote, however, is also an example of foreshadowing, suggesting that while a “messy love life” is the last thing Jackie is looking for at the beginning of the story, it is exactly the thing she is going to find once she encounters the Walter boys.

“This might be where I had to live, and I would try to make the best of it, but it would never be my home.”

This quote sets up a dichotomy between where someone lives and the concept of home. After losing her family, Jackie loses her sense of home and stability: not only the place she lived with her family, but the people that were the scaffolding of her life, the people she felt safest with.