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.
Chapters 1-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary: “Annie”
Twenty-seven-year-old Annie Walker feels like marriage is the only thing missing in her life and plans to follow in her late parents’ footsteps by being happily married by 28. Her first date in years—with John, the “Hot Bank Teller” (4)—starts off horribly when she accidentally spills beer on his lap. She struggles to make conversation because she over-worries about offending others, saying the wrong thing, or being judged. After an emergency trip to the bathroom to reclaim her wits, Annie returns to overhear John calling her “unbelievably boring” and “sort of awkward and weird” with “zero personality” to someone over the phone (9). He begs the person on the other end to bail him out in five minutes with an emergency call.
Chapter 2 Summary: “Annie”
Will Griffin, the former bodyguard of Amelia (Rae Rose), a famous pop star now engaged to Annie’s older brother, Noah, after a year of dating, enters the restaurant with a gorgeous woman on his arm. Annie can’t keep her eyes off him, even as John steps away to take an “emergency” call from his roommate. She’s “had a thing for Will since [she] first met him” but doesn’t expect him to remember her name because they’ve never interacted (15). She’s surprised when he calls out to her and starts a conversation. Will mentions that he’s been assigned to guard Amelia because her team anticipates increased media in town with the upcoming nuptials.
John reappears with a flat tire excuse, and Will intimidates the man into paying when it’s clear he doesn’t plan to. Will decides Annie is perhaps too nice for her own good and walks her out to her truck. He asks her about the historical romance she plans to read when she gets home, prompting them to have a more natural conversation than she has had during any date she’s ever been on.
Chapter 3 Summary: “Will”
Will returns to his date, Gretchen, but accidentally calls her by Annie’s name. He remains distracted the rest of the night and ends their date early instead of joining Gretchen back at her hotel. On his drive into Rome, Kentucky, Will gets a call from his younger brother, Ethan. Ethan informs Will that he’s asked his girlfriend of three months, Hannah, to marry him and she’s said yes. Will refuses to support or congratulate Ethan because up until this point, both men have been emphatically against marriage due to a traumatic childhood growing up with unfaithful parents. Will hangs up on his brother in a fit of anger.
Chapter 4 Summary: “Annie”
Annie heads straight to Noah’s place for an Audrey Hepburn movie night with Amelia and her sisters. They watch Annie’s personal favorite Audrey Hepburn movie, Funny Face; she relates to Jo, the seemingly plain bookseller who transforms into a not-so-plain Jane after all and falls in love with Dick Avery, a famous fashion magazine photographer. Annie wants a Dick Avery of her own, who can help her become less boring and revive her dating game.
Annie tells Amelia of her disastrous date and her run-in with Will. Amelia mentions that Will checked into Mabel’s Inn early instead of going home with Gretchen like he’d planned. Emily and Madison jokingly fight over who should date Will, sparking Annie’s jealousy because she doesn’t believe she can compete with her gorgeous, outgoing sisters. Her sisters believe Annie and Will would be the worst match because she’s “so soft and sweet and virginal,” while he definitely is not (38). Meanwhile, Annie tracks their cuss words in her “No Swear Notebook”; they must pay $20 to charity if they reach 20 tallies in a single month. At the end of the night, Amelia promises to find a way to help Annie get better at dating.
Chapter 5 Summary: “Will”
Will goes on a shirtless morning run, sparking town gossip. He meets with Amelia at breakfast to discuss her security detail for the next month. Though Will enjoys working for Amelia, he can’t wait to be reassigned when the month is over because “boredom does not suit [him]” and Rome, Kentucky, has nothing to offer (47). Afterward, Amelia gives him a white envelope to deliver to the flower shop. She begs him to say yes to what is in the envelope.
Chapter 6 Summary: “Will”
On his way into town, Will crosses paths with Phil—the nosy, talkative, and overly eager hardware store owner. Will evades conversation by mentioning he’s running an errand for Amelia that requires a trip to the flower shop. Acting as a father would, Phil warns Will to stay away from “sweet” Annie, who he does not wish to see hurt.
Chapter 7 Summary: “Annie”
Will visits Annie at Charlotte’s Flowers and delivers Amelia’s letter. Annie is in the middle of reading a heated scene in her historical pirate romance novel and throws it behind her hurriedly. Annie is embarrassed when Amelia’s letter suggests that Will be her dating coach and fights to keep it out of Will’s grasp. He manages to seize it and, after reading, declines the offer.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Will”
Will declines because he’s already attracted to Annie and believes it would be best if he keeps his distance. Aloud, his excuse to Annie is that in the movies, the man changes the woman by putting her through things she doesn’t feel comfortable with, they fall in love, and then everything gets complicated. When Will adds that he doesn’t do love or relationships, it convinces Annie that he’s the perfect man for the job.
When Will continues to decline, Annie attempts to change his mind by suggesting she hire a male escort instead. He plays along but accidentally gets caught up in the game, leading to an almost kiss that is interrupted by Noah’s friend and neighbor, James, who comes to pick up a flower arrangement for his cousin’s wedding. James is wearing a suit, which captures Annie’s attention in a way that makes Will jealous. When she considers asking James to be her dating coach, Will changes his mind and offers to do it on one condition—that he get to borrow her historical romance book.
Chapter 9 Summary: “Annie”
Annie visits Amelia’s local music studio, and they discuss Will. Annie is determined not to tell her siblings, who will treat her like a child and make jokes at her expense.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Will”
Will’s boss, Liv Nolsen, tries convincing Will to stay in Rome, Kentucky, as Amelia’s permanent agent rather than transferring to Washington, DC, to guard a politician like he’d planned. He doesn’t like the idea because he enjoys the bustling big city life, which this small town doesn’t provide. He becomes distracted and ends the call when Annie passes outside the café window.
Chapters 1-10 Analysis
The first chapters in each love interest’s point of view set up the false beliefs that rule their day-to-day life, the voids they feel but don’t yet understand, and, subtly, the lessons they’ll each need to learn to find love and happiness.
Annie’s false belief is that she needs a perfect partner with a flawless marriage and also a happy family to fill the aching void in her life. She has simple qualifications that her ideal husband lives in Rome, has a stable job, is supportive of her career, and wants a family someday. These are “the only things that matter to [her]” (4). Annie believes that being married is the right thing to do simply because it is what many women her age do. This is yet another false belief because what she does not yet understand is that her void is much larger and more complex than she thinks. Marriage is not what she actually desires, and she will discover this truth throughout the narrative. Conflicting with her simple solution of marriage are her steamy pirate romances, which represent a part of her that she has yet to explore. In addition to this, her feelings are hurt every time her siblings make teasing comments about her innocence, and she hates her No Swear Notebook with intense passion but is too afraid to admit it out loud. She is lacking self-confidence in a very damaging way, and she has yet to truly understand herself.
Will’s false belief is that avoiding relationships is the key to his personal happiness. He also believes that he is perfectly content working himself ragged because staying busy is much more exciting than boredom, when in reality, Will fears the discontent he’ll have to face if he slows down. His attraction to Annie is the “[he]-could-get-feelings-for-her kind of” feeling (21), which he’s emphatically against. As Will tirelessly works to repress his attraction to Annie, it becomes clear that he views her for who she really is rather than perceiving her the way the entire town—including her friends and family—does. Will is aware that everyone calls her “Angel Annie,” “the sweet one […] The quiet one. The cute one” (21). This is a reputation Annie cannot escape, and yet the first word he uses to describe her is, instead, gorgeous. The fact that Will can easily spot Annie’s individuality gives him an advantage in their date coaching because rather than transform her into someone else entirely, he instead aims to highlight the appealing aspects of herself that she hides away.
As early as Chapter 1, Adams announces Annie’s struggles with Confidence and Individuality. Not only does she shy away from opening up to her date, but Annie also doesn’t reach out to her sisters for much-needed advice because “[she’s] keeping it a secret—like most things in [her] life” (4). Annie isn’t yet confident enough to publicly denounce the well-known generalizations of her character to the town or her own family. Additionally, though Annie doesn’t address her desire for individuality until much later on, she does internally despise her No Swear Notebook, which “started off as an attempt at humor” but “has turned into a full-fledged part of [her] character that [her] siblings won’t let [her] escape” (37). Her intense hatred for something she used to enjoy but feels she’s outgrown is telling of Annie’s desire for change—even if she’s not quite ready to actively pursue it.
Over time, despite how much Annie doesn’t want to fit into the good-girl stereotype, it becomes internalized. When Will seems to show interest in her, she doesn’t believe it because “there’s no way a man like him would be interested in a woman who was just dumped mid date because she’s unbelievably boring, prettyish, and not even hookup material. [She’s] sure Will is just paying the nice girl a little attention before going on his way” (18). Annie regards his kindness toward her as similar to the pity an adult would show a mistreated child. These internalized insecurities about herself strike again when she worries someone will tell Will of her increasing attraction to him—that he’ll “pat [her] on the head like everyone else does and tell [her that her] attraction to him is cute” (74). In some ways, the themes of confidence and individuality and The Passivity of Excessive Kindness go hand in hand; the expectations placed on Annie by her community lower her self-confidence and limit her individuality, and eventually, instead of actively going against the grain, Annie submits to what is expected of her, playing further into the nice-girl stereotype. This allows others to take advantage of Annie, and, as unhappy as it makes her, she becomes a pushover.
