48 pages • 1 hour read
Sarah AdamsPractice Makes Perfect
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 31-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 31 Summary: “Will”
The next day, Will weeds the flower bed of Mabel’s Inn. He calls his brother to sort through his confused feelings about Annie. He admits that he loves Annie, and Ethan urges Will to follow his heart despite his fear of failing relationships. Mabel overhears the call, and Will “let[s] her fold [him] in the most comforting hug of [his] life” (270).
Chapter 32 Summary: “Annie”
Annie is confused about her feelings for Will. She hopes to visit her grandmother—who suffers from Alzheimer’s—for insight but finds her sleeping at her assisted-living facility. Rather than wake and confuse her, or burden anyone else with her feelings, Annie settles on crying alone. Mabel finds Annie and gives her permission to grieve for the first time over the parents she never got to know and to tell her siblings the truth about how she has been feeling. Mabel also urges her to follow her heart and not give up on Will.
Chapter 33 Summary: “Will”
During a boring shift of surveillance duty around Amelia’s house, Will researches the local community college. Despite being accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology after high school, he joined the military instead, but he wonders what degree he would have pursued if he hadn’t. He is researching the college’s education program when an obsessive super-fan scales the perimeter fence and races up Amelia’s driveway with a box. Will chases down and tackles the man.
Chapter 34 Summary: “Annie”
Annie and her sisters host Amelia’s bachelorette party at their house. The wedding is in two days, and Will leaves in three. After realizing Annie is upset over Will, her sisters comment on her “Angel Annie” reputation, which angers Annie. Remembering what Mable said about telling the truth, Annie reveals that her sisters’ comments are hurtful, admits that she reads steamy pirate romances, and says that has fallen in love with Will. Her sisters apologize. Maddie admits that she’s enrolled in The Culinary Institute of America, which she will be attending in the fall, and that she has a Bookstagram. Amelia admits to Annie that Will hasn’t reached out to her in a few days because he’s recovering from injuries sustained by a super-fan.
Chapter 35 Summary: “Will”
Annie barges into Will’s hotel room as he’s getting out of the shower and scolds him for not telling her about his injuries. His hurriedly secured towel falls, and Annie accidentally sees him naked. Instead of leaving once he replaces the towel, Annie decides to stay.
Chapter 36 Summary: “Annie”
Annie has sex with Will and spends the night in his arms.
Chapter 37 Summary: “Will”
On their way to the town diner the next morning, Annie spots a town business owners’ meeting taking place. They crash the meeting, finding nearly the whole town in attendance—including Noah, Amelia, Madison, and Emily—to discuss Will and Annie. Annie gives a speech about how unfair it is that the town is plotting to break up her relationship with Will, but when she reads the petition, she discovers that everyone approves of the relationship.
Chapter 38 Summary: “Annie”
Annie wears a stunning pink dress to Amelia and Noah’s rehearsal dinner. John is in attendance and asks Annie to go on another date, but she declines. Will attends off-duty. Amelia’s new bodyguard, Danielle, has arrived to take over. After the rehearsal, Will sneaks into Annie’s bedroom through her window, and they make love. The next morning, Annie wakes to find Will—and her latest pirate romance read—gone.
Chapter 39 Summary: “Annie”
Will doesn’t show up before Amelia and Noah’s wedding. Noah tells Annie that he checked out of Mabel’s earlier that morning, and she assumes he left town without saying goodbye. Annie runs into James, who seems bothered to hear Madison is going away for culinary school. A few hours into the post-wedding dancing, Annie decides to leave. She’s blindfolded and playfully kidnapped from the parking lot by Will pretending to be Captain Blackheart from her pirate fantasies.
Chapter 40 Summary: “Annie”
Will drives Annie in a truck that’s now his because “[he] can’t be in this town and not drive a truck” like everyone else (322). Will claims that he sent her a text that morning stating he’d miss the wedding but see her later that night. Annie’s confusion is cleared when his phone shows the message never went through due to the town’s spotty service. He brings her to the house he’s bought, decorated romantically with flowers and fairy lights. Will quit his job and plans to attend the community college to become a teacher. Marriage is important to Annie, and so Will asks her to marry him, but she declines because she doesn’t want him to “put all [his] fears aside for [her] happiness” (326). She agrees to deepening their relationship, however, and allows Will to take her on adventures around the world.
Epilogue Summary: “The Rome Gazette”
One year later, The Rome Gazette reports a break-in at Will and Annie’s home during their two-week vacation to Paris. Supposedly, the sheriff tackled one of the two perpetrators to the ground but was immediately restrained by the man, who happened to be Will. Will explained that he and Annie lost their house key and decided to sneak in through their window.
Chapter 31-Epilogue Analysis
In this final section, Mabel has a significant impact on both love interests. Her nosy yet nurturing character provides comfort and advice to Will and Annie that helps clarify their feelings for one another and the path through the respective family issues they struggle with. When Annie reaches a breaking point, she has no one to turn to. She’s always been the comforter among her siblings and has never “saddled them with [her] emotional burdens” (273). It doesn’t feel fair of her to pile her problems on them all of a sudden, but Annie can’t go to her grandmother because her dementia causes her to not recognize Annie a majority of the time. Mabel helps Annie realize that her initial false belief (that she needs a husband) and her updated false belief (that she needs to discover herself) are both completely wrong. Annie’s known herself all along; the real issue lies in her “constantly isolating […] from her feelings” and “ignoring those needs” rather than sharing them with her friends and family and leaning on others for support (275). This realization gives Annie the confidence—and self-righteous anger—to stand up to her siblings and admit the truth to how their constant teasing makes her feel.
Mabel giving Will a hug at the end of Chapter 31 following the phone call with his brother symbolizes Will deciding to heal from his past with his dysfunctional parents. The hug is comforting and makes him feel “a lot like the little boy who used to climb that magnolia tree just wishing for a hug like this” (270). The fact that she’s able to give him this comfort shows how this town has become home for him and the people, his family. This represents the ways in which he’s slowly healing from The Impact of Childhood Experiences and accepting that maybe his views on marriage have changed.
Will using the word “sweet” to describe Annie during sex in Chapter 36 brings a new meaning to the word, a different connotation that makes Annie like the adjective for the first time. From this point forward, Annie starts to accept herself unequivocally. She no longer feels the need to wear a stunning dress to Amelia’s wedding to showcase her transformation into some new, desirable woman—though she does so anyway, not “to prove herself” to others but because she wants to (305). She doesn’t dress for Will but wears it because “it makes [her] happy and confident” (306). While at the wedding, Annie decides she doesn’t mind if someone calls her “Sweet Annie.” She now knows and accepts every part of herself, even the qualities that fit that mold.
In the final chapters, Will states that “the trademark of every good romance novel is a grand gesture” (325). This element of traditional romance novels is called the “grand romantic gesture” and is a plot device that allows one love interest to show their love and commitment to the other—often following a third-act break-up or miscommunication. Romances are highly character-driven stories, and because of this, the grand gesture is often inspired by key elements of one or both love interests. In Practice Makes Perfect, Will’s grand gesture follows the third-act miscommunication where Annie believes he’s left town without saying goodbye and doesn’t intend to pursue a long-term relationship with her. The gesture references Annie’s love for steamy pirate romance novels, as Will decides to roleplay a pirate and brings her to a house decorated like the inside of a ship. Will even wears the earring he claims to have had in the past, which formerly reminded Annie of the male love interests in her pirate novels. When Annie declines Will’s marriage proposal, she completes her character growth and has finally discovered what makes her truly happy and fulfilled.
In the final chapter prior to the Epilogue, where future Will and Annie are happily married, Adams presents an unconventional happily ever after for contemporary romance novels. Will makes a grand proposal, but Annie declines and settles for dating instead. The narrative choice subverts the stereotypes of the happily-ever-after trope and simultaneously adheres to the traumas and fears of the characters that still need working through. Love, as much as film and literature want us to believe, does not heal all, at least immediately. This must happen independently but does not necessarily need to happen apart. Annie recognizes that Will is not ready to marry because he has not yet overcome the trauma of his childhood, and she also recognizes that she needs to stop viewing marriage as a simple solution to all her problems when it is not. Dating seriously and long term allows the couple to work through these issues and eventually marry, with a much stronger, long-lasting foundation.
