63 pages • 2 hours read
The Unraveling of Julia
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Important Quotes
Content Warning: This section contains discussion of death, graphic violence, child abuse, mental illness, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and substance use.
“Julia knew something terrible was about to happen.”
(Chapter 1, Page 1)
This is the first line of the novel. It introduces Julia’s power of premonition, while creating a sense of foreboding and foreshadowing for Mike’s murder. Accepting her psychic gifts is an important part of her character development later in the novel.
“Mike stared at the stars. Seeing between them, forever.”
(Chapter 1, Page 2)
This is the moment when Julia’s life changes when her husband Mike dies. Before she realizes that her horoscope that day predicted his death, and accepts that her premonition was accurate, Scottoline introduces the stars. Astrology is an important symbol in the novel, becoming a way for Julia to feel a sense of control over her fate by knowing it in advance. Mike’s glimpse of “forever” here will be echoed toward the end of the novel, when he reappears in a vision to Julia and says he will love her “forever.”
“It was pure, weapons-grade guilt, Catholic in origin. Mike had died for her.”
(Chapter 2, Page 5)
This passage develops Julia’s character by showing the reader that she was raised Catholic and she suffers from survivor’s guilt. The descriptor “weapons-grade” indicates that her guilt destroys her identity and completely upends her normal life, developing the theme of Identity Destabilized by Grief.
