50 pages • 1 hour read
Lyla SageLost and Lassoed
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A 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
Redemption Through Responsibility
Taking on meaningful responsibilities leads Gus and Teddy to personal growth, healing, and redemption from their preconceived ideas of themselves and each other, helping them move beyond feelings of inadequacy and failure. Over the course of Sage’s novel, Teddy and Gus learn that responsibility involves showing up meaningfully for others and connecting to something greater than themselves. Redemption, Sage suggests, comes from taking ownership of one’s life and actions by acknowledging past mistakes, committing to personal growth, and investing in the well-being of others. Teddy and Gus reclaim their values and strengths by embracing responsibility not as a burden but as an opportunity to find purpose, peace, and a renewed sense of self. Their journeys highlight the importance of embracing responsibility as a pathway to self-discovery and a life richer in meaning and connection.
Caring for Riley represents an opportunity for Teddy to redefine herself during a personal and professional crossroads. Teddy isn’t new to taking on responsibility, as she has been her father’s sole caregiver for many years. However, she struggles to overcome others’—especially Gus’s—perception of her as flighty and irresponsible. Initially, she sees taking on the role of Riley’s caretaker as a favor to Emmy and Cam, whom she loves and respects. However, her role in Riley’s life and deepening connection with Gus offer her the chance to reclaim her sense of purpose. By becoming a stable, nurturing presence for them, Teddy begins to heal her own wounds, particularly those related to her self-worth. Gus admits, “Teddy was so much more than I’d ever given her credit for, and I felt stupid for only just now realizing it” (155). Although she takes the job to find financial stability, Teddy’s time with Gus and his daughter challenges her emotional boundaries. Teddy’s arc demonstrates that responsibility can be empowering, as her love for Riley and Gus inspires her to let go of past failures and embrace the possibilities of a new future.
Gus’s arc centers on his struggle to balance work and his personal life. Amos encourages him to pursue a life enriched by family rather than consumed by duty. Through his advice about letting go of control, Amos offers Gus a form of redemption that ultimately defines the trajectory of his personal growth, helping him see that the ranch should not be a burden but a path to purpose and fulfillment. Gus grows by investing in the ranch and creating a home filled with love, committing to the people and places he cherishes. He finds redemption by allowing himself to move on from the guilt of leaving Riley at soccer practice and accepting that he needs help. From Teddy, he learns that love is not just another responsibility in his life but a way to honor his desire for happiness by building a support system. He notes, “Teddy helped show me that-that I couldn’t be everything to everyone all at once” (275). Taking ownership of his past actions (particularly his decision to walk away from Teddy seven years prior to the novel’s opening) and prioritizing others’ well-being paves the way for reconciling their relationship. Teddy and Gus thrive together as they share the responsibility of caring for Riley and working on the ranch. Working together teaches them the value of relying on one another. In uniting their efforts, they create a family unit that strengthens and stabilizes them, allowing them to put the past behind them and focus on a shared vision for the future.
Finding a Sense of Belonging
Although they love their small town of Meadowlark, Gus and Teddy struggle with feelings of disconnection when they find themselves on the cusp of a new phase in their lives. Teddy feels left behind in Meadowlark as she compares her life to those around her. Meadowlark is a small, tightly knit community where traditional family structures are prominently valued. Teddy describes Meadowlark as “a room with a low ceiling and no windows, but you wouldn’t know that unless you left and saw how big other rooms could be” (96). Still single and childless, Teddy feels out of sync with these expectations—a feeling exacerbated by losing her job, which removes a significant source of personal pride and identity and leaves her floundering for a sense of purpose. While Teddy outwardly resists conforming to Meadowlark’s expectations, she also desires the fulfillment and connection that come with love and family. Watching her peers settle into these roles makes her feel stagnant, as if life is moving forward for everyone else and leaving her behind.
As Teddy begins to bond with Gus and Riley, she envisions a new life where she can belong, not through conventional achievements but through the love and trust she builds with others. She realizes that her value is not defined by meeting society’s metrics but by how she cares for others. Her initial sense of being left behind transforms as she discovers her worth and recognizes that there is no singular timeline for happiness or belonging. Instead, her experience reveals that paths to fulfillment are as varied as those who walk them. No longer emotionally and physically adrift, the ranch becomes not a place where she merely works but a home where she is valued. Her growing love for Gus and Riley rebuilds her confidence, helping her move forward and find strength and joy in forging her unique path.
The combined pressures of Gus’s role as a single father and his ranch duties limit his emotional connections with others. Despite his close ties to the land and community, Gus builds self-protective emotional walls around himself. Though he’s part of a large family, he struggles to communicate and connect with them, thus proving that a person can still feel alone when surrounded by others. The expectations he places on himself leave him feeling like an outsider in his own life. Gus works tirelessly to provide for Riley and the ranch, yet he also feels inadequate, questioning whether he’s genuinely meeting everyone’s needs. Teddy challenges Gus’s solitary mentality by forcing him to confront his belief that self-reliance is the only way to survive. With a direct yet empathetic approach, Teddy steadily works to break down Gus’s walls, often without him realizing it. Teddy models emotional honesty amid his stoic endurance and pushes Gus to reflect on the consequences of his isolation and his habit of taking on too much responsibility and shutting others out on himself, on Riley, and on those who care about him. Teddy integrates herself into Gus’s world, showing him how a shared life can be more abundant and fulfilling. Gus’s and Teddy’s journeys to find where they belong demonstrate the importance of searching for meaning not just in a place or a relationship but through an emotional foundation that provides stability, purpose, and meaning.
Evolution of Relationships in Adulthood
The novel captures the complexities of adult relationships, portraying their fluid nature as people navigate new seasons of life. Moving out of young adulthood forces a change in priorities, and Teddy’s and Gus’s experiences portray the challenges of maintaining connections when the burdens of adulthood deepen. Teddy and Emmy’s friendship conflict showcases how friendships can shift, deepen, or face challenges as individuals grow and their circumstances change. Sage depicts Teddy and Emmy’s friendship as deeply rooted in a shared past, forming the foundation for their connection. Teddy explains that as kids and young women, “mostly [they] laughed and held each other upright when [they] thought [they]’d fall. It was nice that [they] still had this, even though [their] friendship [had] changed” (236). However, Emmy’s engagement shifts her focus and priorities toward Brooks. Teddy learns that she must respect Emmy’s journey and that mutual encouragement and support can healthily replace the dependence they once had on one another when they were younger. Their relationship arc demonstrates the potential for long-standing friendships to evolve to accommodate adult life’s new realities. Teddy and Emmy work through their misunderstanding with honest, open communication, reflecting mature emotional intelligence.
Sage uses the friends-to-lovers trope to define the evolution of Gus and Teddy’s romantic arc over the course of the novel. When they were younger, Teddy and Gus despised one another, and their rivalry continued into adulthood since Gus assumed that Teddy was the same person she was in adolescence. Both Teddy and Gus have matured as they’ve experienced life changes and challenges. Gus has taken over many responsibilities on the ranch and become a father, while Teddy creates original designs and acts as her father’s primary caregiver. Gus’s co-parenting arrangement with Cam exemplifies the theme of nuanced adult relationships, as the two work in a unified, peaceful way to ensure that Riley feels loved and cared for by both. As an adult, Gus’s relationships with his father and siblings experience conflict as he takes on more responsibilities, being poised to take over the ranch. His growing responsibilities create tension, which requires honest communication to maintain healthy boundaries. While Gus bristles at taking his siblings’ advice about hiring help internally, he knows they’re right. Over the course of the novel, Gus’s relationship with his father and siblings evolves into a deeper understanding of his family’s values, sacrifices, and perspectives. He learns to appreciate their wisdom and support, even if he doesn’t always agree.
Gus and Teddy find each other at a crucial time in life when their forced proximity allows them to move beyond the past and accept how each has grown and matured. Their relationship thrives because of their ability to accept each other’s flaws and celebrate each other’s strengths. This maturity and empathy are hallmarks of adult relationships, where deeper connections often stem from understanding one another’s complexities. Gus and Teddy’s romantic journey reflects how relationships can evolve when personal growth and past experiences serve as a fertile foundation for connection, emphasizing the importance of emotional maturity in adult partnerships.
