65 pages • 2-hour read
Pucking Sweet
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Themes
The Challenges of Craving Familial Validation
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child abuse, emotional abuse, and antigay bias.
In Pucking Sweet, author Emily Rath explores the tension between being true to oneself and meeting family expectations. Throughout the novel, Poppy struggles between her desire for her powerful family’s approval and her self-castigation for continuing to desire it even in the face of their poor treatment. This creates, for Poppy, a feedback loop of negative feelings: She feels pain because her family treats her unkindly and then feels pain again because she believes that her desire for their approval is both illogical and a sign of her inadequacies. With this thought process, her anxiety becomes less directly about her family’s treatment and more about her damaged sense of self. Poppy struggles with her need for family approval and her disdain for herself for feeling this way, which she sees as a failure of self-confidence.
Although Poppy makes great strides throughout the novel in being more confident in her choices and her identity, her struggles with her family don’t have a clear resolution. Eventually, she does stand up to Annmarie—first over the phone and then by refusing to hide her relationship at Violet’s wedding—illustrating both her growth and increased self-esteem. However, the anxieties produced by her unsupportive family relationships persist. As she prepares to give birth, for example, she worries about her abilities as a mother, concerned that she will alienate her son the same way Annmarie alienated her. Her relationship with Violet at the end of the novel is also uncertain, although framed in positive terms for the future. Though Poppy and Violet mutually acknowledge a desire to improve their relationship, Poppy recognizes that this may not come to pass, given the intense work needed from both of them. The challenges of craving familial validation are presented realistically as complex and multi-faceted in the novel, rather than something that can be easily conquered. Through Poppy’s journey, the novel portrays recovering from the pain of an unsupportive and manipulative family as an ongoing challenge, even after undertaking the hurdle of standing up for oneself. Her courage, however, illustrates the importance of taking the risk and becoming honest and vulnerable to move forward in familial relationships.
Lukas’s personal history offers another perspective on the issue of family love and support. Lukas’s only experience with family is complicated by his mother’s abandonment and his grandfather’s abuse. Like Poppy, Lukas craves both familial love and the validation that comes with it, but unlike Poppy, who recognizes this desire in herself, Lukas denies that he wants this kind of love. For Lukas, family is fraught with the fear of vulnerability and betrayal, but despite his hesitations, he moves forward into building a new family with Poppy and Colton. His journey pushes him to reevaluate himself as someone worthy of love, someone who desires love, and someone who is loved—by a family who appreciates him more than his birth family ever did. With Lukas’s character arc, Rath explores the concept of seeking validation from family from a different point of view; Lukas courageously builds a family that he trusts and whose validation is given freely. By exploring family from these two different perspectives, the novel offers portraits of two very different family dynamics and how seeking validation from family can be affirming if one dares to stand up for what one wants.
The Influence of Zodiac Signs on Interpersonal Relationships
In the supplementary materials for Pucking Sweet, Rath includes background information to help readers understand the genre, plot conventions, and even the characters of her novel. These materials include information about each of the three protagonists’ zodiac signs, an astrological concept that refers to the constellation hidden behind the sun at the time of someone’s birth. While controversial, some people believe in the zodiac constellations’ ability to predict personality traits. In the world of Rath’s series, however, these predictions are represented as truth. Poppy is a Libra, which means, according to the preface materials, that she is “strategic, compassionate, indecisive”; while Lukas, a Scorpio, is “guarded”; and Colton, a Leo, is “loyal” (xii). The characters are all aware of their zodiac signs, and their understanding of the way their signs play into their personalities makes the signs’ influence on their relationships metatextual, offering indications of what they value and how they will act. The signs’ influence is also thematic, as each of the protagonists explores how to balance the benefits and detriments of their zodiac signs.
The novel presents the qualities ascribed to the characters by their zodiac signs as both determined by the stars and as guidance for how the characters should act, making their actions something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. When Colton schemes to convince Lukas to come back to the group’s relationship, he describes his plan as “[going to] be a Leo” (501). The text frames this choice as Colton leaning into his strengths, including his loyalty, presenting them as predestined by his birth. The novel’s protagonists also use their zodiac signs to predict one another’s behaviors. When Lukas pushes Poppy and Colton away after learning that Poppy is pregnant, for example, they recall Lukas’s self-identification as “a chaotic double Scorpio” who will “want [them] at first sight and fight it until [he dies]” (293). With these clues, Poppy and Colton realize that though Lukas has broken up with them, he doesn’t really want to end their relationship; he is, instead, fighting against what he truly wants.
With this emphasis on zodiac signs as a means of characterization, Rath can frame character actions in a different way than they might otherwise be understood. Colton’s decision to ignore Lukas’s wishes and move himself into Lukas’s home is not a sign that Colton is ignoring Lukas’s needs, but rather that Colton understands Lukas on a deeper level and is a suitable partner for him. In the context of the novel, zodiac signs show what characters need even when they don’t know it themselves. The interplay of various zodiac-inspired qualities also illustrates why the group is best together; when they are pursuing Poppy, Lukas comments that, though he had to put Colton on “a goddamn leash” because of his Leo over-exuberance, it has become “Scorpio time” (332). With comments like these between the characters, the novel contends that if zodiac signs open the protagonists up to weakness, the interplay between their different signs can ameliorate the effects of those weaknesses, creating a greater strength among the group.
Pursuing Desires Despite Fear of Public Recrimination
As a PR specialist, Poppy spends the novel keenly aware of the power of public perception, although her background from a powerful DC-based political family gave her a strong sense that she is “much happier spinning the stories, not starring in them” (265). Her choice, therefore, to pursue a romantic relationship with two professional hockey players in the public eye is deeply fraught for her. In the beginning, this reluctance to be the subject of speculation and gossip serves as a plot device that promotes secrecy between her and her budding romantic connections—they wish to keep their names out of gossip channels, so they keep their relationship hidden, creating tension in instances where they fear getting “caught” by their colleagues.
As the novel continues and Poppy becomes more convinced that she wants to be with both Colton and Lukas, despite the consequences, the tension between pursuing her desire and fear of public recrimination becomes tied up in fear of anti-LGTBQ+ discrimination (Poppy, Lukas, and Colton self-identify as “queer”). These fears of discrimination are exacerbated when Poppy learns that she is pregnant, as she worries that any intolerance she faces will be similarly suffered by her child. However, when Annmarie laments that with an openly polyamorous relationship, Poppy is “setting [herself and her child] up for a lifetime of ridicule” (580), it causes Poppy to reflect more seriously on her position. At first, she feels like Annmarie is “reading aloud from the pages of [her own] anxiety journal” (580), but Annmarie’s answer also makes Poppy feel as though she is not loved or cared for by her parent. This experience recenters her thinking on the subject, and she ultimately realizes that “what matters most is that [her] children will know they are loved and happy and cared for by parents who cherish them” (580). Her family’s structure is not the most important thing about it; instead, what matters most is their intense love for one another. When Annmarie demands to know “what [she is] supposed to tell people,” Poppy offers that she is “happy and flourishing […] in love with two wonderful men” (579). Throughout the novel, Poppy moves from valuing her mother’s approval above all things to realizing that the most important thing that she can offer her own child is the one thing she was denied: unconditional love.
Ultimately, facing private recrimination from her family makes Poppy realize that public recrimination is not the barrier to her happiness that she once perceived it to be. Instead, she comes to value the love and support of her close relationships over the opinions of those outside her circle of loved ones—including her family. With Poppy’s example, Pucking Sweet promotes pursuing happiness even when the possibility of judgment looms, suggesting that others’ harsh opinions are unimportant, while happiness is much more lasting.
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