54 pages • 1 hour read
Carley FortuneThis Summer Will be Different
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.
Symbols & Motifs
Oysters
Oysters are omnipresent throughout the novel, symbolizing Felix’s attraction to Lucy. PEI is famous for its fresh seafood, and Lucy’s trips to the island involve eating as many oysters as possible. The first time Lucy meets Felix, he works as a shucker at an oyster bar. She is mesmerized by the way he looks shucking the oysters. Felix brings Lucy a plate of oysters on the house, indicating his initial attraction to her. Oysters are a known aphrodisiac, a food thought to increase libido. Lucy notes that Felix “ma[kes] shucking oysters look like foreplay” (11). Shortly afterward, they have sex for the first time.
On Lucy’s subsequent visits to the island, Felix frequently brings over fresh oysters. Even when there is tension in their relationship, he never fails to bring her oysters, mirroring his continued attraction to her. Lucy never gets sick of eating oysters, symbolizing that she reciprocates Felix’s attraction—just as she can’t get enough oysters, she can’t get enough of him.
Even after Lucy and Felix enter a steady relationship, Lucy retains an image of him on the first day they met: “a flash of an oyster knife, fast hands, messy hair” (289). The image of oysters remains inextricably linked to their connection.
Teacup Rock
Teacup Rock was an iconic sandstone formation that used to stand on Thunder Cove on PEI. In the novel, Fortune uses Teacup Rock to symbolize the inevitable changes that time brings.
Teacup Rock was a famous landmark and a popular picture spot, known by PEI residents and visitors alike. During 2022’s Hurricane Fiona, Teacup Rock washed away into the ocean. In the narrative, the loss of this landmark foreshadows another loss, the death of Lucy’s beloved aunt Stacy in 2023. The changing landscape of PEI reflects the changes in Lucy’s life.
On her first visit to Thunder Cove after Hurricane Fiona, Lucy feels “strangely emotional” at the absence of Teacup Rock. She mentally connects it to the painful changes she’s gone through in the past year. Lucy feels like the things she loves are inevitably “slipping away” from her. Like hurricanes, time and death are destructive natural forces that cannot be avoided.
As time passes, Lucy comes to terms with the inevitability of change. She learns to process changes in a healthy way rather than fearing them. In the lead-up to Bridget’s departure to Australia, Lucy cries while “[picturing] Teacup Rock before the hurricane swept it into the ocean” (288). This moment occurs after Fortune has established Lucy’s improved relationship with change, indicating that Lucy can accept change while still honoring her emotions about the things she has lost.
Seed Packets and Books
After Felix’s first visit to Toronto, he sends Lucy a seed packet. In response, she sends him a copy of Wide Sargasso Sea, a book she has seen him reading. This exchange represents their bond, which is maintained even when they are apart. As Lucy says in Chapter 22, these gifts mean “I’m thinking of you” (174).
Felix initiates their first exchange by anonymously mailing Lucy a packet of orange dahlia seeds—the choice is significant because orange dahlias are one of the flowers on the cover of Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden, a book about cut-flower farming. Lucy has told Felix about her dream of opening a cut-flower farm, so sending her orange dahlia seeds is his way of expressing his care and encouraging her dream. In response, Lucy sends Felix a clothbound copy of Wide Sargasso Sea. To Lucy, this exchange is a wordless communication of care: “Books and seeds feel like our secret language. Something just for us” (205).
The content of the books that Lucy sends Felix is also symbolically important. Felix and Lucy connect over their shared appreciation for the Anne of Green Gables book series. The series protagonist, Anne Shirley, is from the fictional Bolingbrook, which is based on Lucy Maud Montgomery’s hometown of PEI. Throughout the series, a boy named Gilbert Blythe courts her and proposes to her twice. Anne rejects the initial proposal because she is leaving Bolingbrook for college in Kingsport. After returning to Bolingbrook, Anne realizes that Gilbert is the love of her life and returns to PEI to settle down with him. After Lucy and Felix rekindle their relationship, she gifts Felix a copy of Anne of the Island. The events of the novel mirror her own journey. Having spent time in the city, Lucy is now ready to return to PEI and settle down with Felix, the love of her life.
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By Carley Fortune
