Peter dismisses young Alice's dream of making her own worlds as a writer, telling her you get the world they give you.

Alice earns a scholarship to a liberal arts college in Maine and enrolls in her first creative writing course.

Alice's older brother Peter dies of a drug overdose, and Alice travels home to Oregon for his funeral.

Alice drops out of college but stays in Maine and takes up daily swimming to cope with her grief over Peter.

While swimming in a Maine pool, Alice conceives the idea for a novel about a boy who fears water.

After receiving many rejections from publishers, Alice sends her manuscript Theo to literary agent Madeline Armstrong.

Reading manuscripts at home in the middle of the night, Lara opens Theo and stays up until she finishes it.

Rowan records Alice Wein's novel Theo as his eighth audiobook assignment and finds it the most moving project he has narrated.

Theo is published and receives both glowing praise and sharp dismissal in a wave of online reviews.

Miranda tears apart her mother's copy of Theo and uses the pages to create wings for her new mixed-media sculpture.

After a stroke forces Tyler off the diving circuit, he finds his ex-girlfriend's abandoned copy of Theo and reads it.

Nola, secretly living in a school shed, reads Theo for English class and gains new empathy for her absent mother.

Kit reads Theo and realizes he and Annalise are incompatible, then moves out and ends their relationship.

Snowed in at a remote ghost town, William reads his late wife Abigail's annotated copy of Theo.

At Madeline's memorial in the New York Public Library, Alice discovers an image of Miranda's winged sculpture and is inspired by a new story.

This pool traces the most pivotal moments in the novel's main narrative arc, beginning with the personal losses that drive Alice Wein to write her first novel, Theo. It follows Theo through its creation, rejection, and eventual submission to literary agent Madeline Armstrong, and then charts how the published novel transforms the lives of seven distinct characters across America. Each reader—Lara, Rowan, Miranda, Tyler, Nola, Kit, and William—encounters Theo at a turning point in their lives, and Alice's story shapes each of them in ways she cannot foresee. The pool concludes with Alice's moment of creative renewal at Madeline's memorial, closing the loop between the novel's author and all those touched by her work.

The core story of Theo—from writing to worldwide impact.

A visiting author at Alice's elementary school inspires nine-year-old Alice to pursue writing for the first time.

Alice's father refuses to fund her college tuition after Peter squandered his own education, pushing Alice to earn a scholarship.

Lara gets pregnant unexpectedly and transitions from working at Madeline Armstrong's office to reading manuscripts from home.

After his skin condition worsens and damaging rumors spread, Rowan abandons his acting career and retreats to Vancouver.

Rowan's sister Hadley visits him in British Columbia and urges him to reinvent himself by trying audiobook narration.

An anonymous Amazon reviewer praises Theo's emotional power, while a bookfluencer posts brief but enthusiastic online praise.

Miranda sneaks into the abandoned farmhouse neighboring her property to salvage artifacts and materials for her new sculpture.

Tyler's father, alarmed by his son's dangerous obsession with water, moves the family inland to a town with no swimming pools.

Tyler meets his girlfriend Saylor on the beach after she notices him emerging from the water.

After her depression worsens following a car accident she blames herself for, Nola's mother disappears and leaves Nola completely alone.

Kit meets Annalise by chance when both arrive at a café for blind dates with different people.

Kit proposes to Annalise despite his family's growing disapproval of the relationship.

A sudden snowstorm traps William at the remote ghost town, leaving him with dangerously dwindling food supplies.

After finishing the Theo audiobook on the drive home from the airport, Juliet resolves to reinvest in her marriage with Richard.

Madeline, facing a terminal brain condition, hires a young woman named Nola to help sort her enormous book collection.

This pool focuses on the secondary events that shape each character's personal context and backstory. It opens with the childhood moment that first sparked Alice's desire to become a writer and follows the upheavals that define her world and those of the novel's other major characters. From Rowan's forced career reinvention to Nola's abandonment by her mother and Kit's unlikely romance, these events reveal the private histories and quiet struggles that make Theo's impact on each character so profound. The pool traces the quieter but essential beats—love stories, family tensions, and moments of transition—that give the novel its emotional texture. It concludes as Madeline, facing the end of her life, hires a young woman named Nola to help her sort the books that represent her life's work.

The supporting stories and circumstances behind each character's journey.

Professor Roberts tells Alice she has talent but must write with empathy and learn to let her reader into the story.

After Alice finishes Theo's first draft, Professor Roberts helps her through the full editing process before she submits the manuscript.

Lara reads the opening sentence of Theo in the middle of the night and immediately feels understood and no longer alone.

After recording Theo, Rowan considers reaching out to Alice Wein but learns she is reclusive and decides against contacting her.

A professional literary review dismisses Theo as hackneyed and sentimental, marking the novel's harshest public reception.

Miranda's mother arrives at her studio unannounced and is moved to see that Theo's pages have become the sculpture's wings.

Tyler dives too deep during a competition at the Blue Hole, suffers a stroke, and is hospitalized.

After finishing Theo, Tyler realizes how fortunate he is to have survived the diving accident and feels genuinely less alone.

Nola argues forcefully with classmate Tina over how to interpret Theo, prompting deep reflection on her own grief and losses.

The school gardener confesses to Nola that he told Ms. Hildegrand about her secret living situation in the shed.

Kit hears Alice speak candidly about writing and her novel at the bookstore, which finally motivates him to read Theo.

Reading Abigail's annotations in Theo, William reflects on discovering that his daughter Clara secretly helped Abigail choose to die by starvation.

Flying home from Paris, Juliet starts the Theo audiobook and recognizes that the narrator is her former lover Rowan.

Nola finds Madeline collapsed on the floor and, reading her silent plea, chooses not to call an ambulance.

Nola remains beside Madeline in her final hours and stays with her as she quietly dies at home.

This pool gathers the pivotal decisions, revelations, and emotional turning points that alter the course of each character's story in the novel. It begins with Professor Roberts's foundational challenge to Alice—write with empathy and let your reader in—which sets Theo into motion as a force of healing. Each subsequent event marks a moment of recognition or transformation: Lara's instant connection to Theo's opening sentence, Tyler's near-fatal dive at the Blue Hole, Nola's fierce classroom defense of Theo's meaning. Hidden truths also surface, from the secret of Abigail's chosen death to Juliet's startled recognition of Rowan's voice in the audiobook. The pool closes with Nola's quiet act of staying beside Madeline as she dies, a culmination of the compassion and connection that run through every story in the novel.

Key decisions, discoveries, and emotional shifts that change each character's path.