58 pages • 1-hour read
Vera Wong's Guide to Snooping (on a Dead Man)
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Clash Between Online Personas and Reality
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death.
The novel draws attention to the conflict between online identities and lived realities, especially focusing on how social media encourages disconnection from the self. Aimes’s breakdown when she is unable to get the perfect shot of her coffee exemplifies this: She admits that she does not even like the particular matcha-coffee blend she has ordered, “but straight coffee doesn’t get as many likes as a swirly, multi-colored drink, so here she is” (56). She ordered it specifically for its Instagram appeal, and her decision to prioritize the drink’s aesthetics over its taste highlights her need to distort her reality to fit an online ideal, creating a schism between her online and offline selves. The wider this grows, the more unsettled and anxious Aimes feels. For instance, she notes that she has a table lamp in the shape of a hand that she hates. Yet, she keeps the lamp around because her followers love stories featuring the piece of décor. Aimes has to suppress her natural revulsion for the artefact to maintain her online self. The lamp, which she compares to “having someone’s severed hand on [her] nightstand” (108) is a symbol of the emotional cost of Aimes’s online persona that she maintains by ignoring her true self.
The persona of Xander further shows how social media can reinvent an entire life that has little connection to offline reality. Xander notes that he creates his online life “[b]ecause he needed an escape. Something to dream about, no matter how unrealistic” (316). His online fantasy life is his only way to live the American Dream. He even chooses the name “Xander” because of its associations with coolness and invincibility. Xander is Thomas’s alter ego and is his way to cope with his offline reality; in this way, it is his armor. However, the novel shows that it also becomes his prison since social isolation plays a part in perpetuating the fantasy. Vera observes that his online followers were happy knowing just the surface-version of Xander, not bothering to explore further. When Vera attends the party of influencers, she notes that “nobody knows Xander” even though they follow his amazing life (176). For Xander’s followers, he is only a product for their consumption rather than a real person.
However, the novel resists a simplistic condemnation of social media. While old-timers like Vera and Qiang Wen recognize Xander’s isolation and the fact that his carefully curated life is too perfect to be true, they do not advocate renouncing social media. In fact, Vera herself becomes a TikTok personality and declares her fondness for the medium. Unlike Xander, she doesn’t use it to fabricate a persona but to foster connection. She uses it to share her genuine interests, like food and tea, and to aid in her sleuthing efforts. In this way, the novel shows that social media can help people creatively express themselves and it is also a great tool—in this case, it helps Vera zero in on the address of the warehouse. The distinction lies in authenticity: While Xander and Aimes bend reality to please their followers, Vera uses it to genuinely express herself and connect. The novel ultimately argues that the problem is not the medium of social media but the culture that drives the myth of the perfect self. When people realize that there is no such thing as the ideal self, online and offline selves can be aligned.
The Need to Empower Older Individuals and Challenge Ageism
The novel challenges ageist assumptions by centering Vera, a senior citizen. She often refers to herself in public as a “helpless little old lady” (18), but this label is a ruse she deploys strategically. Armed with her portable shopping cart, her large face visors, and tiffin boxes of delectable food, Vera seems charmingly quaint, but she uses this as a weapon to disarm people. Others tend to relax around her, and this allows her to ask them sharp, discomfiting questions under the guise of harmlessness. Vera admits to Aimes that her “[m]ind is as sharp and clear as […] a sniper rifle” (204), revealing her self-awareness and capacity for manipulation. Her portrayal subverts the stereotype of the elderly as passive, slow, or irrelevant. In fact, she uses these very assumptions to her advantage.
Vera’s portrayal challenges many notions associated with stereotypes of older women, and this subversion extends to her use of technology. The stereotype of older individuals being inept with social media is upended by Vera being confident and proficient at it, and her authenticity distinguishes her content. Vera does not fabricate a persona. Instead, she posts videos of herself doing what she genuinely loves—brewing tea and cooking food—and she makes no secret of the intention behind the videos, which is to investigate Xander’s murder. Her transparency and natural charisma distinguish her from younger influencers who feel pressured to curate their identities.
Moreover, Vera’s attitude toward ambition further dismantles ageist ideas that older persons prefer to retire from the action or that they slow down and are no longer ambitious. This notion is even more pronounced in the case of older women. However, Vera celebrates ambition, even when it seems unfashionable. For instance, at the influencer party, she observes that Natalie is ambitious in a cutthroat way, but Vera cannot be annoyed about ambition in a woman. She thinks that “[i]f she were in Natalie’s shoes, she would’ve totally done the same thing […]. Finally, she decides that she doesn’t particularly like Natalie, but she also wishes that Tilly and Selena were more like her” (175). By admiring Natalie’s assertiveness, even while disliking her, Vera reveals that her ambition hasn’t faded with age.
The novel makes a case for older individuals changing their own lives when they feel stuck, rather than grow increasingly isolated. Vera has solved her loneliness and boredom by adding more members to her found family and cultivating new interests like crime investigation and social media. Qiang Wen’s character arc offers a complementary perspective. At the beginning of the novel, he has become so passive and stuck in his routine that he only ever eats dumplings for meals, not even caring about their taste. He notes that “[h]e’s been chewing for years without tasting” (78), which is a metaphor for emotional and sensory numbness. However, as the novel proceeds, Qiang Wen starts to enjoy food again. When the group heads out to save Millie at the end of the novel, an empowered Qiang Wen decides to join them as “[h]e is not about to sit this one out” (304). His reengagement with life demonstrates the novel’s argument that aging can be a time of renewal and agency.
The Importance of Community and Found Family
The novel presents found family as an antidote to loneliness, emphasizing that enduring, familial connections can be created outside traditional nuclear or biological family structures. Through Vera’s example, the novel argues for a wider notion of what a family looks like or how it is built. When Vera takes Robin, her new granddaughter, shopping with little Emma, she notes to herself: “Hasn’t this been what she has dreamed about for years and years? To be able to go shopping with her grandkids. Oh, what happiness” (134). Her dream comes true not through her biological son Tilly, but through the community she has built, and this is a testament to the power of found family.
The language of family used throughout the novel reflects Vera’s cultural background, where calling someone “aunty” or “Ah Jong” implies intimacy and respect. This practice redefines kinship beyond bloodlines, and Vera exemplifies this idea in her relationships with her chosen community. Therefore, by reminding the children to call her “grandmother,” Vera teaches her found family a new way to look at relationships, highlighting the idea that care rather that biology is the basis of family.
Found family is also shown to be a great resource in the book, enabling people to watch out for each other and seek each other’s help when needed. The novel contains several examples of friends and family relying on each other for practical support. For instance, Vera feeds Chichi, babysits Emma, and cooks food for everyone in her circle. Aimes and Robin shoot Vera’s videos. Winifred helps clean Vera’s shop after the vandalism. The greatest example of Vera’s community rallying together is their combined effort to save Millie, with every person helping in their own way.
The community networks in the novel span generations and cultures, showing how found families can bridge cultural gaps. Vera, for instance, is a Chinese immigrant from the Yunnan province, Sana is Indian American, Riki and Adi have Indonesian roots, and Julia, Emma, and Aimes are white. Millie’s found family, too, is multicultural: Yara is Russian, Thomas is Indonesian Chinese, and Channary hails from Cambodia. The multicultural nature of these families helps people discover other traditions and expand their horizons. When Vera learns from Millie about Thomas’s love of Indonesian steamed-fish dumplings, she immediately calls up Riki, asking for the recipe. Thus, the multicultural found families of the novel are not just a personal refuge but a microcosm of a more empathetic and inclusive society.
Unlock every key theme and why it matters
Get in-depth breakdowns of the book’s main ideas and how they connect and evolve.
- Explore how themes develop throughout the text
- Connect themes to characters, events, and symbols
- Support essays and discussions with thematic evidence