Line #38 Literature/SoBIt


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/so_b_it.jpg]]
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3	In this award-winning tale by Sarah Weeks, 12-year-old Heidi [[DoesntKnowTheirOwnBirthday doesn't know when her birthday is]] or who her father is. In fact, everything about Heidi and her mentally disabled mother's past is a mystery. When a strange word in her mother's vocabulary begins to haunt her, Heidi sets out on a cross-country journey in search of the secrets of her past. It was made into a movie in 2016, directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal. A companion novel, ''Soof'', was published in 2018.
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5	!!Tropes in this work:
6	* AdaptationDyeJob: Heidi is brunette and blue-eyed in the book, but in the movie she’s blonde and brown-eyed.
7	* AdaptedOut: College freshman Georgia Sweet doesn’t appear in the movie.
8	* AffectionateNickname: Bernadette often refers to So B. It as “Precious.” In turn So B. It refers to Bernadette as “Dette.”
9	* AgeAppropriateAngst: Heidi naturally has questions about her origins, and gets frustrated by her mothers limits and Bernadette’s agoraphobia.
10	* AlliterativeName: Diane [=DeMuth=].
11	* BabiesEverAfter: [[spoiler:Roy and Ruby have a daughter, who they name Aurora at Heidi’s suggestion.]]
12	* BadLiar:
13	** Heidi’s neighbor, Zander, often tells outlandish stories. Heidi doesn’t think they really happened, but she likes to listen to them anyway to see if there’s any truth to what Zander says.
14	** Heidi herself embellishes the truth while chatting with her bus neighbor Alice. Alice implies that she knows Heidi isn’t telling the truth and they spend the rest of the bus ride in silence.
15	* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Heidi finds the answers she’s looking for, finds more family members, and later lives a more normal life. Bernadette is even recovering as an agoraphobic, but So B. It dies.]]
16	* BornLucky: Heidi has a seemingly lucky streak. Mostly she uses it to play the slot machines to earn a little extra money. [[spoiler: Heidi loses her lucky streak after her mother dies.]]
17	* BuryYourDisabled: [[spoiler:Sophia dies while Heidi is across the country.]]
18	* BusCrash: [[spoiler:Heidi’s maternal grandmother, Diane, was hit by a bus and killed.]]
19	* CharacterTitle: The title, ''So B. It'', refers to Heidi’s mother and what Bernadette interprets to be her name.
20	* ComingOfAgeStory: Heidi had to grow up rather fast thanks to her mothers handicaps, but more so after she travels across the country to figure out her origins.
21	* DaddysGirl: According to Heidi, Bernadette and her father were very close and her agoraphobia kicked in right around the same time he died.
22	* DisappearedDad: [[spoiler: Sophia’s dad was long gone by the time Heidi was born, and Diane was prepared to take care of them both.]]
23	* DoesntKnowTheirOwnBirthday: Due to circumstance, Heidi spends the first twelve years of her life not knowing her exact birthdate, though Bernadette accurately guesses that Heidi was born within the first two weeks of February.
24	* EducationMama: Bernadette takes it upon herself to tutor Heidi.
25	* FriendlessBackground: Thanks to her upbringing, Heidi doesn’t have any friends her age, not including her neighbor Zander.
26	* GenderBlenderName: Bernadette is often called "Bernie."
27	* GoodGirlsAvoidAbortion: [[spoiler: When Thurman learned that Sophia was pregnant by Elliot, he assumed that the odds of two intellectually disabled adults bringing a healthy child into the world weren’t good. He felt that the pregnancy should be terminated, but Diane insisted that she would be able to raise the baby herself.]]
28	* HappilyAdopted: [[spoiler:Heidi, when Bernadette officially becomes her legal guardian.]]
29	* HappilyMarried: Roy and Ruby Franklin.
30	* HeroicBastard: [[spoiler:Heidi learns that her parents were never married.]]
31	* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: The title of every chapter is one of So B. It's twenty-three words.
32	* ItsAlwaysSunnyAtFunerals: [[spoiler: Sophia’s funeral was on a clear day.]]
33	* KilledOffscreen: [[spoiler: In the book, Heidi hears from Bernadette over the phone that her mother died.]]. Averted in the movie where [[spoiler: Bernadette is shown trying to flag down an ambulance, despite her agoraphobia.]]
34	* LawOfInverseFertility: As Heidi learns accidentally, Ruby has suffered a few miscarriages.
35	* LongLostRelative: [[spoiler:Heidi is this for her father's side of the family.]]
36	* {{Malaproper}}: To Heidi’s confusion, Bernadette stays that she took to reading and writing “like a duck” when she was a toddler. It’s possible that Bernadette meant that Heidi took to reading and writing like a duck to a puddle.
37	* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Is Heidi's lucky streak some sort of magical superpower [[spoiler: that's connected to her mother]]? Or is she just really, ''really'' lucky? Ultimately, no definitive answer is given to either.
38	* MissingMom: Elliot’s mother is out of the picture, leaving Thurman to pick up the slack.
39	* MondegreenGag: [[spoiler: Heidi learns that "So B. It" was her mother trying to pronounce her own name, Sophia. Likewise, “Soof” was Elliot’s special name for her.]]
40	* MysteriousBacker: Heidi and her mother apparently have their own apartment connecting to Bernadette’s apartment. Heidi wonders how the apartment is paid for when none of them have any real paying jobs. [[spoiler:It’s later revealed that Heidi’s grandfather, Thurman Hill, was paying for everything long distance, only the money was running out.]]
41	* NoAntagonist: There is no appointed villain.
42	* NomDeMom: [[spoiler: By the end of the book, Heidi goes by her mothers maiden name, DeMuth, rather than her fathers surname Hill.]]
43	* OlderThanTheyLook: So B. It looks younger than she is, thanks to her diminutive height.
44	* PosthumousCharacter: Diane. Also overlaps with SmallRoleBigImpact.
45	* PluckyGirl: Heidi’s pluck motivates her to travel by bus across the country to try and find answers about her past.
46	* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Local sheriff Roy Franklin is this. Also Thurman Hill, owner of Hilltop Home.
47	* TheReveal:
48	** [[spoiler: So B. It’s name is Sophia.]]
49	** [[spoiler: Both of Heidi’s parents were intellectually disabled and placed in the same care home.]]
50	** [[spoiler: Thurman bribed Diane to take Sophia and give birth in Reno, Nevada.]]
51	** [[spoiler: Diane planned on taking care of Sophia and raising Heidi, only she was hit by a bus and killed.]]
52	* TheShutIn: Heidi’s neighbor and unofficial guardian, Bernadette, has crippling agoraphobia.
53	* SimpletonVoice: In the movie, So B. It and Elliot have this.
54	* SlaveToPR: [[spoiler:Out of fear that Hilltop Home would be shut down, Thurman Hill went to great lengths to conceal Sophia’s pregnancy by his son Elliot. He later comes to regret this decision, because Elliot and Sophia had a special relationship, even though neither of them had the words to express it.]]
55	* SocialServicesDoesNotExist: Played with. Bernadette considered alerting social services when she found So B. It and a then newborn Heidi, but ultimately decided not to because she feared they wouldn’t do right by either of them.
56	* SpeechImpediment: So B. It only knows twenty three words because of her mental handicap. Elliot isn’t shown to be verbal at all.
57	* StrongFamilyResemblance: Heidi and her mother resemble each other with their brown hair and blue eyes.
58	* TeenPregnancy: [[spoiler: In the movie, Diane had Sophia when she was eighteen. Later Sophia has Heidi at the same age.]]
59	* WorldOfNoGrandparents: [[spoiler: Mostly averted. Thurman is Heidi’s only surviving grandparent.]]

Context Literature / SoBIt