More Happy Than Not

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2015

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-4

Part 1, Chapters 5-10

Part 1, Chapters 11-14

Part 2, Chapters 1-4

Part 2, Chapters 5-8

Part 0

Part 3, Chapters 1-6

Part 3, Chapters 7-17

Part 4

Part 5, Deluxe Edition

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Part 3, Chapters 1-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 3: “Less Happy Than Before”

Part 3, Chapter 1 Summary: “This Time Around”

Aaron survives the assault, though he’s in excruciating pain. He reflects on the procedure’s failure to actually change his nature. Later, he wakes up at the Leteo Institute. Dr. Evangeline Castle and his mother are relieved that he’s recovering. They tell him he’s been there for four days. Aaron demands that they repeat the procedure and make it work this time. Evangeline says that it’s experimental and that they will not repeat it. When he sees his battered reflection, he angrily punches and shatters the mirror. His mother tells him that Genevieve and Thomas have come to visit him every day.

Part 3, Chapter 2 Summary: “Tough Stuff”

Aaron has nightmares about his father’s suicide. Brenden has sent him many apologetic text messages, but Aaron ignores them. Thomas and Genevieve come to visit, but Thomas has difficulty meeting Aaron’s eyes. Me-Crazy has been arrested and sentenced to a juvenile detention center. Thomas and Genevieve seem close, which makes Aaron anxious and upset. Thomas talks about his own relationship patterns, annoying Aaron. Aaron tells him that if he’s not going to admit his feelings, then Aaron needs space to get over his own.

Part 3, Chapter 3 Summary: “Dead End”

Aaron apologizes to Genevieve for using her when he knew he was gay. She says he has nothing to apologize for and that she is equally complicit for staying with him even though she knew why he was getting the procedure. She tells him that she doesn’t think Thomas is gay and that she doesn’t want Aaron to wait for Thomas the way she was waiting for Aaron. Aaron asks if Genevieve thinks Thomas likes her, but she says she’s already told him no. She’s nervous that he’s forgotten this, but he claims to have just zoned out. They argue about the ways they wronged each other in their relationship before Genevieve leaves, upset.

Part 3, Chapter 4 Summary: “Psych Me Out”

Aaron meets with Evangeline and the architect to discuss revisiting the procedure. The doctor says they’ve already seen what happens after Aaron has the procedure: his true self bursts through quickly. Aaron says he won’t survive having his memories back. Evangeline reminds him that his mother has to sign off on the procedure, but that he can come to the appointment he made recently if she does.

Part 3, Chapter 5 Summary: “Winding Back the Clock”

Aaron, suffering from the memories and the loss they include, calls Collin.

Part 3, Chapter 6 Summary: “Once More”

Aaron and Collin talk on the phone for several days. They don’t discuss their pasts or Nicole, Collin’s pregnant girlfriend, but they do talk about movies and comic books. Aaron’s mother takes him home. When they arrive, Baby Freddy runs over to say hello, but Aaron’s mother panics and screams that she’ll call the police and have all of them sent to jail if they come near Aaron. Baby Freddy says he just wanted to apologize because what the other guys did was awful. Once his mother is asleep, Aaron sneaks out of the house to meet Collin. At the diner, Aaron forgets that he has a full cup of coffee and asks for a refill. They talk briefly about Genevieve and Nicole and then go to the comic book store. Collin doesn’t believe that Aaron underwent the Leteo procedure. They go to their old spot and have sex.

Part 3, Chapters 1-6 Analysis

These chapters cover the early period after the assault. Aaron’s memories are restored, and he’s initially frantic to forget them again. His doubled memories are both disorienting and distressing. Already full of self-loathing, he is now forced to think about whether it was really his sexuality that caused the problem. For now, he does believe it—and he is anxious to forget it all over again so that he can live a normal, happy life. Of course, there’s no such thing as a “normal” life, so Aaron’s desire for some sort of happiness-ensuring normalcy is doomed. This part of the book also lays the foundations for upcoming plot points, namely Genevieve and Thomas’s relationship and Aaron’s inability to form new memories.

Most of Part 3 is transitional. It reveals some new details and foreshadows significant upcoming events, but it doesn’t do much to move the narrative forward. Regardless, it has an important effect on Aaron, the reader, and the narrative itself. These chapters allow Aaron to reconnect with some of his forgotten past. They also serve as the calm before the storm of the life-changing revelations to follow. If the reader feels that very little is happening here and that the narrative is dwelling in a more superficial approach to the plot and Aaron’s development, it’s valuable to ask why that might be. In this case, the reader is both lulled into a false sense of positive progress and made uneasy by the small hints that something is wrong with Aaron’s memory. It’s also important that Aaron is, once again, an unreliable narrator. He can only remember what he can remember, so at this stage he’s not able to see and contextualize the early signs of his amnesia.