56 pages • 1 hour read
Adam SilveraMore Happy Than Not
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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The Importance of Memory in Developing Self-Image
Memory is one of the prevailing themes of this novel. One way the text approaches memory is through overt, explicit discussions of remembering and forgetting and the mechanisms by which we do both. What underpins all of these, however, is the role that memory plays in the recognition and development of one’s self-image. When the reader meets Aaron, he has a vague but optimistic view of the future and a vaguer, somewhat detached view of his past. We learn later in the novel that this is because he’s had his memories manipulated to forget that he is gay and had his heart broken; he tries to have this past excised like a tumor. However, forgetting these parts of himself means that he has no real concept of what he wants or how to get it.
For example, Aaron does not remember his relationship with Collin, so he struggles to identify Thomas’s sexuality and gauge any reciprocal interest. Because he has forgotten his own sexuality, he struggles anew with his desire breaking through the heteronormative walls he’s built for himself. Without remembering the truth behind his father’s death and his own suicide attempt, he repeatedly considers suicide as an option. Memory provides context and allows a person to grow in response to hardships and blessings. Without that context, Aaron is adrift in a sea of uncomfortable, unfamiliar aspects of himself that he struggles to accept.
It is also worth considering that Aaron is the only one who does not remember his relationship with Collin and the long-standing social suspicions about his sexuality. Because of this, he experiences the heightened surveillance of his movements differently than he would if he could recall his time with Collin. Brendan’s impatience with Aaron’s sex questions is clarified when we later discover what Brendan knows that Aaron and the reader do not. The guys’ quick and violent reaction to Thomas’s presence, which makes Aaron so paranoid about his masculine presentation, is also explained by the history that Aaron is unaware of.
The novel’s original ending emphasizes the importance of memory in creating a fully realized self. Even with the limitations of his amnesia, Aaron comes to understand that each memory has formed the person he is—the person who loves Genevieve, loves Thomas, is an artist, and hurts deeply when he feels abandoned. Without that self-knowledge, Aaron is unable to recognize moments of true happiness in his life, and he is also unprepared to weather hardship and manage his reactions to it. Even as the novel presents the option to forget via the Leteo procedure, it urges that we must remember, that we owe it to ourselves to remember.
The Possibility and Reality of Happiness
The book’s preoccupation with happiness begins with its title: More Happy Than Not. This measured description gives the reader an early clue as to the novel’s ultimate perspective that happiness is experienced not as a major life event but as an accumulation of moments of connection and joy. These moments form a protective wall against sadness and hardship—because there are so many bricks in the wall, it cannot be demolished by any one trauma. This is a lesson Aaron must learn, but his struggle to do so is, of course, exacerbated by his relationship to the first theme: memory.
Aaron’s idea of happiness is skewed by both his romanticism and his self-loathing, key aspects of his character. Because Aaron hates himself and his life, he struggles to identify the small moments when he was happy and longs instead for a cinematic type of happiness in which he rides off into the sunset. The self-loathing also means that Aaron’s happiness hinges upon finding someone who loves and accepts him and will never abandon him. That type of affective state is always precarious because it depends on the whims and desires of another person. Aaron tries to find this kind of happiness with Genevieve, Collin, Genevieve again, Thomas, and potentially Jordan at the end of Part 5 in the deluxe edition.
Thomas provides an alternative scheme of happiness. He recognizes the feeling as multifaceted and empowers himself to cultivate it. His life chart is a great example of this; he’s broken happiness down into a hierarchy of needs that remains flexible enough for him to experiment, with categories such as school/work, health, self-actualization, and relationships. Thomas also uses the word “self-esteem” to talk about his desire for more love and purpose. This scene occurs relatively early in the novel, forecasting the overall theme of basing happiness in self-actualization and self-esteem and giving voice to its importance through Thomas.
The Role of Masculinity in Sexual Identity
Aaron’s life is consumed with the obligation to perform masculinity in a way that is legible and acceptable to his community, which, at least from Aaron’s perspective, has very conservative views on gender and sexuality. He is frequently admonished or reminded to act “like a man” in a way that reassures other people that they all conform to a similar understanding of gender roles. Examples of this pressure are obvious in Part 0, the unwinding, but they’re also dropped elsewhere into the narrative. One of the most profound examples is Collin’s explanation of why he’s breaking up with Aaron. He says, “Nicole’s pregnant and I was trying to talk her into not keeping the kid before I told you, but she is, so I gotta be a man again” (176). When Collin says he has to “be a man again,” he suggests that he was not “being a man” up until this point. To be gay, then, is to be unmanly.
The surveillance of this masculinity takes several forms as Aaron negotiates his sexuality within the group dynamics of the guys on the block. The other guys value sexual experience, violence, machismo, and boundary-pushing. Aaron purposefully cultivates some of these values, but he is not as invested in them as the others are. He is performing a masculinity that will grant him acceptance within the social group. One thing to consider when analyzing this theme within the text is whether it allows for the possibility of a spectrum of masculinities within the label of queer or gay. In this novel our most developed gay character, Aaron, is associated with feminine interests and identifications, which stand out as indicators of his sexuality. The novel isn’t obligated to represent all possible types of queer masculinities, but it’s significant that it so often links queerness to the feminine.
Thomas bridges some of the differences in that he has stereotypical feminine interests and traits (such as sensitivity, artistry, empathy, a willingness to communicate honestly, and the ability to be vulnerable) but is, despite Aaron’s suspicions, heterosexual. Thomas’s character allows the possibility of straight men who embody feminine values, but there are no characters who allow for a more stereotypically masculine model of homosexuality. This particular story is about a boy whose sexuality has expressed itself in an affinity for female-driven media, but the reader should expand their consideration of queer masculinity to include the many different ways men experience the intersection of their gender and their sexuality.
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By Adam Silvera
