Content Warning: This section discusses domestic abuse.

“My old man said lots of things, and I made sure most of them went in one ear and out the other. He didn’t know what he was talking about half the time, but that truth about things needing to get ugly before getting better…I got that from him.”

These lines from Gavin’s first chapter support Finding Strength in Perceived Weaknesses and establish how Gavin’s struggles with reading permeate every aspect of his life. Since his dad dropped out of school to work and support his family, Gavin wrongly assumes that his dad is unintelligent and that, by extension, Gavin is also unintelligent. Gavin doesn’t yet understand that there are different types of intelligence and that someone doesn’t have to be good at reading to be smart. His father’s wisdom also foreshadows the narrative arc of the novel, in which things do get worse before they get better.

“Call me crazy, but I wished my parents had a love story like that. The only thing they were good at was fighting. Really good at it. They’d only had me to try to save their marriage. I guess a lot of people make that mistake. Turns out I just gave them more to fight about—even before I was born.”

Randi thinks this after she recalls how Gavin’s parents met while they were both working at the same house. Randi’s comparison of Gavin’s parents’ secure relationship to her own parents’ divorce is part of the first few chapters’ exposition: It sets up the poor relationship that Randi has with her mom and how the pressure that Randi feels to do well goes all the way back to her birth.