50 pages • 1-hour read
The Ex
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Symbols & Motifs
WhereAmI App
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of suicide.
The fictional location-sharping app WhereAmI appears throughout the novel as a recurring motif related to the theme of heartbreak. The novel depicts location-sharing apps as a violation of privacy that fuels Anna’s obsession with Joel in “The Ex” chapters and prevents her from moving on. The app is introduced as a tool Anna uses to follow Joel “anywhere he goes via GPS with startling accuracy” (28). Although they are living in New York City, one of the largest and most crowded cities in the world, the app allows Anna to “narrow in on Joel’s location” (56). The app both reflects and exacerbates the intense nature of Anna’s obsession with Joel, creating a sense of claustrophobia that reflects Joel’s horror when he discovers Anna is stalking him. These depictions of the app suggest that location-sharing apps can be dangerous in the wrong hands.
The novel also suggests that Anna’s use of the app keeps her from moving on after her breakup with Joel. She recognizes that using the app enables her “obsessing over Joel” (63) and allows her to follow him into situations that upset her, such as when she sees him kissing “Olive,” later revealed to be Francesca. Eventually, Anna grows “embarrassed” (76) by her behavior and deletes the app. However, she finds that the app is “harder to get rid of than [she] thought” (93), and re-downloads it to continue following Joel. The fact that, even after she deletes the app, she is able to reinstall it again and still see Joel’s location reflects the difficulty of letting go of an emotionally significant relationship.
Francesca’s Gold Rose Necklace
The gold necklace that Francesca wears and Anna later steals is an important symbol of jealousy, secrecy, and The Disempowering Effects of Wealth Inequality. In the first photo that Cassie sees of Francesca, she is wearing a “sparkling gold necklace wrapped around her throat, with a yellow rose hanging off it” (171). Despite the fact that Cassie is wearing almost exactly the same Halloween costume that Francesca is wearing in the photo, Cassie cannot take her eyes of “that shimmering gold rose around her neck” (193). In these passages, the use of the words “sparkling” and “shimmering” reflect the quality and price of the necklace, which Cassie cannot imagine ever being able to afford. For Cassie, the necklace acts as a symbol of Francesca’s status as a wealthy, sophisticated woman, a status she is deeply jealous of and feels she will never achieve.
When Anna sees Francesca wearing the gold rose necklace, she immediately assumes that “Joel gave it to her” (304). Anna’s jealousy of Francesca leads her to kill her and disguise the death as suicide. Anna hides the necklace deep in a drawer in her child’s bedroom, reflecting the deep secrecy surrounding the murder. In the novel’s Epilogue, Cassie finds the necklace at Anna’s house and realizes that Anna is responsible for Francesca’s death. Cassie considers the necklace to be “Anna’s secret” (344) and vows that she “will never tell” (344). The deep secrecy around the necklace is a reflection of the mystery surrounding Francesca’s death.
Grandpa Marv and Grandma Bea
Cassie’s grandparents Marvin and Beatrice Donovan appear throughout the novel as symbols of Cassie’s desire to live an extraordinary life, representing her struggles to live up to her own expectations. Cassie repeatedly compares her relationship with Joel to her grandparents’ relationship, which she considers “the greatest love story of all time” (43). She describes their romance as “a lot to live up to” (43) and believes that “there would never be a love as strong as the one between her grandparents” (43). The use of superlatives in these passages suggests that Cassie has put her grandparents’ relationship on a pedestal as a goal that may be unattainable.
Cassie also struggles to live up to the expectation set by her grandparents in their ownership of the bookstore Bookland. After taking control of the bookstore, Cassie aims to keep it exactly as it was when her grandparents owned it. The signs on the shelves designating different genres are written “in Grandpa Marv’s handwriting” (21), and “Cassie won’t touch them, even though the paper is starting to disintegrate” (21). Cassie’s unwillingness to remove elements of the store produced by her grandparents reflects her desire to maintain the standard they set for the store. Ultimately, Cassie continues her grandfather’s illegal forgery business in order to keep control of the store and maintain her grandparents’ legacy.
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