Content Warning: This source text depicts bullying and insensitive remarks about mental health.

The book’s title indicates its primary theme, the search for belonging. As the students call Cooper “Whatshisface,” they highlight Cooper’s alienation. He doesn’t have a proper name because he doesn’t have a place in the community. Isolated, Cooper feels like he doesn’t belong. The narrator thus states, “Cooper Vega is invisible” (1). To become visible, Cooper has to stand up for himself and use his voice. Roddy tells him, “Thou must speak up for thy honor” (52). He has to counter Brock: the bully who constantly makes him feel like he will never belong. He also has to share his feelings with Jolie.

After Cooper unexpectedly gets the part of Romeo and excels at it, he earns widespread social acceptance. The narrator notes, “Sixth graders treat him like a hero. Eighth graders talk to him. He belongs” (173). Yet Cooper realizes that praise, popularity, and attention are not, on their own, enough to make him happy.

The theme then pivots from a focus on basic belonging—which implies external validation—to an emphasis on strong internal self-validation and a desire to maintain substantive relationships. By taking on the role of Romeo, helping Roddy, and opening up with Jolie, Cooper not only defines his personal character, he also begins to reap the rewards of healthy emotional intimacy with others. Now that he has a powerful sense of his inner self, he doesn’t have to rely on others’ acceptance to feel as though he belongs on the outside. He already knows, without anyone else telling him, why he belongs in the world of Stratford.

Like Cooper, Roddy struggles with belonging. He, too, feels marginalized and like an outcast. Not only is he an orphan, who spent his life working in an abusive printer’s shop, but William Shakespeare also stole his play after he died. Just as Roddy did not have a stable place in Elizabethan England, he does not have a firm position in the story. He is a 13-year-old boy who died in 1596 yet stays trapped in a smartphone in 2018. Roddy is unsure of where he belongs.

Though Roddy doesn’t struggle with asserting his agency—in fact, he’s quite vocal—he craves public recognition. While he was alive, he dreamed of achieving fame as a playwright. Now, as a ghost, he is desperate for people to know that he is the person who really wrote the play that turned into Romeo and Juliet. Similar to Cooper at the book’s beginning, Roddy’s search for belonging originally centers on external validation. After Cooper reveals Roddy as the true author, he gets a booming applause. Mission complete, he vanishes. Yet Roddy texts Cooper, “I shall never forget thee” (226). Thus, the search for belonging remains multifaceted: like Cooper, Roddy discovers that friendship and emotional intimacy are critical to leading a happy existence. In the end, Roddy’s secret relationship with Cooper is as meaningful as public approval.

Although the narrative shows little of Brock’s inner life, his actions suggest that he is also battling to achieve a sense of belonging. Though Korman presents Brock as a cartoonish bully, without any redeemable qualities, Brock’s boorish behavior results from insecurity and a lack of a healthy identity. His tendency to seek attention, including his habit of continually screaming, “Wherefore art me?” disclose more about his own uncertainty about who he is than he means to share. Korman thus hints that Brock doesn’t know who he is, and that he is hoping that others’ attention will strengthen his sense of self. By bullying people and acting silly, he tries to belong.