You Go First

Ben Boxer is the other protagonist, and the other half of the chapters are narrated in the third person through his point of view. Like Charlotte, Ben is smart, logical, considerate, unconventional, and interested in topics that are considered “weird” by other middle-schoolers. He also helps illustrate The Impact of Family Dynamics on Young People because he’s struggling to accept his parents’ divorce. Like Charlotte, Ben isn’t sure how to process his emotions about this major shift, so he attempts to distract himself with other activities, namely running for student council treasurer. Convinced that his parents are “devolving” and threatening to bring him down with them, Ben also avoids his parents and attempts to focus on bettering himself. Distancing himself from his parents exacerbates Ben’s problems rather than solving them, and only through letting them back in does he realize that it doesn’t have to mean “devolution” for the whole family. His family is shifting, not disappearing.

Whereas Charlotte has one real-life friend at the novel’s beginning, Ben has none, and Charlotte provides a lifeline that helps him overcome other obstacles. When Ben learns that his parents are getting divorced, he calls Charlotte, which makes him feel better even though they don’t actually discuss the divorce. This illustrates how online connections can be just as meaningful and helpful as those made in real life. Cultivating a long-distance friendship with Charlotte also gives Ben the courage to befriend Wyatt in real life, even though he’s being bullied by others at school. While Ben’s bullies escalate dramatically over the course of the novel, starting with verbal taunts and ending with physical violence and throwing firecrackers, he ends the story in a better emotional place thanks to the support of adults and his new friend. His bullies are reprimanded, and his new bedroom at his father’s apartment symbolizes the new start he can have with Wyatt by his side.

Charlotte’s mother and father are both successful intellectuals—her father is a retired art history professor, and her mother is a statistician. Charlotte’s parents are both smart, responsible, and curious, having attended prestigious colleges and cultivated interests in a variety of topics. Charlotte is influenced by her parents—like them, she is smart, curious, and interested in topics that seem strange to others. Her parents are also considerably older than her peers’ parents, which creates a distinction between Charlotte and her peers. Bridget often jokes that Charlotte’s parents are “old-fashioned,” meaning they’re different from what she’s used to. Charlotte sometimes feels embarrassed by her parents, but ultimately, they’re loving, supportive, and comforting. When her father has a heart attack, Charlotte feels adrift because it seems like her world is falling apart.

Charlotte’s father’s heart attack, emergency surgery, and time spent healing in the hospital provide one of the main conflicts in Charlotte’s story. When her dad’s life is threatened, Charlotte struggles with her fear of losing him, coupled with her guilt about all the times she felt annoyed by his quirks or rejected spending time with him. She is also scared to visit him in the hospital and come face-to-face with the reality of his condition. Charlotte’s obsession with online Scrabble is a way for her to feel close (but not too close) to her father because they used to play Scrabble together. Once Charlotte finally visits him in the hospital, she discovers that he’s not as sick as she expected. His personality is still the same, he still loves her, and there’s nothing scary about the visit. Her anxiety is alleviated, but for this to happen, she has to face her fears rather than run away from them. After this, Charlotte starts to find equilibrium in other areas of her life as well.

Bridget MacCauley is Charlotte’s best friend for the first part of the novel. Bridget is artistic but superficial; she’s not interested in studying, word puzzles, poetry, or anything else that might be considered “weird” by the popular kids at school. She’s also mean and talks about Charlotte behind her back. Because of the contrast between her and Charlotte’s personalities, they’re drifting apart, and their friendship seems to be on its last leg. Bridget illustrates The Challenges of Navigating Friendship & Bullying in Middle School because in addition to figuring out how to make new friends, middle school students must sometimes figure out how to end unhealthy friendships.

Bridget tries several ineffective and even harmful strategies to end her friendship with Charlotte. First, Bridget tries to simply replace Charlotte without explaining why or admitting what she’s doing; this doesn’t work because Charlotte tortures herself wondering why Bridget doesn’t want to be friends anymore. Bridget also attempts to convince Charlotte to befriend Magda instead of her; this doesn’t work because Bridget has bullied Magda behind her back so much that Charlotte doesn’t take her suggestion seriously. Lastly, Bridget bullies Charlotte behind her back, saying hurtful things about her to her new friends. This is ineffective and harmful because Bridget doesn’t want to antagonize Charlotte—she just doesn’t want to be best friends anymore. Once Charlotte realizes Bridget no longer wants to be best friends, the relationship morphs organically into a more distant, muted acquaintanceship. Bridget still calls Charlotte to check up on her dad, for example, but the two girls no longer hang out. This is an example of how friendships can peter out. Middle school is a time of rapid change for many students, so, naturally, some friendships may come to an end, but this doesn’t mean former friends need to resort to bullying or otherwise harming each other.

Magda Rivera is Charlotte’s next-door neighbor and a fellow member of the talented and gifted program. Magda is intelligent, kind, and unconventional. She’s relentlessly bullied at school, to the point where she eats lunch on the roof each day to avoid other children. Magda faces significant challenges as the target of direct bullying, but she’s also the target of indirect bullying by kids like Bridget and Charlotte. They avoid her and use her widespread nickname, “Mad Magda.” Through Magda, it is shown how bullying has a web effect because Charlotte and Bridget avoid her to protect themselves, as if they believe that associating with Magda would make them targeted as well.

Once Charlotte starts getting bullied herself, she realizes that bullying can happen to good people and that bullies often have reductive, misleading ideas about the people they bully. For example, Charlotte’s bullies imply that she’s stupid and unlikeable, which isn’t true. Charlotte realizes that Magda isn’t “mad” like everyone says; instead, Magda is kind, generous, and smart, and her interests complement Charlotte’s. Magda is a more suitable friend for Charlotte than Bridget because both girls enjoy science, poetry, and word puzzles, whereas Bridget is more interested in boys and visual arts, neither of which interests Charlotte. Charlotte and Magda both transcend their experiences with bullying and embrace a new friendship based on their own rules rather than the typical rules of middle school, which don’t make sense to either of them.