Victoria has no idea what to expect when Caitlin Somers invites her to spend the summer with her at Martha's Vineyard. Caitlin is rich, energetic and classy; Vix comes from a family that can barely get by, with a mother who has become a Broken Bird.
Tropes for this book include:
- Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: Bru with Vix and Caitlin being off the island starts an affair with Star, the owner of the new vitamins store.
- Abusive Parents:
- Darlene to Tawny, Vix's mother. Tawny is horrified when she catches herself slapping Vix for applying to Harvard, repeating the cycle of abuse.
- Ed had an abusive stepfamily. He got out of it as soon as he could by joining the army.
- All Take and No Give: Zig-Zagged with Caitlin. While she does use people for her amusement, her sense of generosity allows Vix to gain opportunities she otherwise would have lacked. Vix says as much towards the end.
- Amicable Exes:
- Phoebe and Lamb, who share custody of Caitlin.
- Averted with Tawny and Ed, Vix's parents.
- Zig-Zagged with Bru and Vix.
- Babies Ever After:
- Bru and Caitlin have a baby girl. Bru goes on to have several more children with Star.
- Vix and Gus raise a boy named Nathan.
- Babies Make Everything Better: Subverted. Bru thinks this will be the case when he marries Caitlin. Instead of shaping up and actually caring about the people who love her, she runs away to another country and abandons their child.
- Benevolent Boss: The Countess to Tawny, even taking her on vacation after Nathan dies and leaving enough money to her to live on in Florida.
- Bittersweet Ending: Vix ends up as a successful PR agent and marries a man she loves, but Caitlin disappears and no one knows what's happened to her.
- Broken Bird: Tawny, alternating with Abusive Parents.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Vix to her mother when the latter accuses her of letting the Somers take over her life. Vix makes a sharp point that her mother doesn't seem to care at all about her future, while at least the Somers do.
- Children Are Cruel: Lanie and her two kids are not the nicest people. Lanie as a teenager acts out, and gets pregnant before turning eighteen, while calling her father's new girlfriend a "cow" and hitting up on Vix for money, thinking that she's rich and spending money on herself. Her children follow suit, which Vix lampshades.
- Cool Big Bro: Averted with Sharkey, Caitlin's older brother, and with Daniel, her step-brother.
- Cool Big Sis: Vix for Nathan. Subverted with her other siblings Lanie and Lewis.
- Dead Guy Junior: Vix names her son after Nathan, who dies early in the book.
- Delicate and Sickly: Nathan, Vix's brother, has muscular dystrophy. He dies from complications with pneumonia.
- Disappointed in You: Sharkey to Caitlin for not making anything of her life.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Tawny slaps Vix for applying to Harvard and her Calling the Old Man Out moment.
- Driven to Suicide: In the end, everyone fears that Caitlin did this after Vix went to visit her in Italy. The authorities find her boat, but no person in it. They hold a memorial service, though Vix hopes that one day she'll receive a postcard out of the blue.
- Everyone Has Standards: Everyone in the Somers family except Sharkey is horrified that Caitlin leaves Maisie behind after divorcing Bru. Phoebe in particular notes that she didn't abandon either Caitlin or Sharkey.
- Ignored Epiphany: Caitlin seems to give an accurate summary of the terrible things she's done when reuniting with Vix for the latter's thirtieth birthday: abandoned her baby, stole Bru, and lied to Vix about a lot of things. She plans to marry an Italian man who doesn't know about Maisie, and refuses to let Vix ask any questions.
- Ivy League for Everyone: Vix beats the odds and gets accepted into Harvard, while Caitlin defers her acceptance to Wellesley to travel the world and Sharkey goes to Stanford.
- Karma Houdini: Caitlin for all of her actions, including marrying Vix's ex and leaving her child.
- Laser-Guided Karma: On a reread, Bru is less sympathetic, as he admits in his chapters that he can't choose between either Vix or Caitlin. He also confesses to himself that he cheated on Vix with either Caitlin or Star, and sleeps with Vix the night before his wedding to Caitlin. It's thus less cold-feet on Vix's part and more Properly Paranoid that she refuses to marry him, and Caitlin leaves him while ceding custody of their child to her father Lamb.
- May–December Romance:
- Caitlin has an affair with a married director.
- Paisley flirts with an older man but nothing comes of it.
- Neat Freak: Maia, Vix's college and post-grad roommate. She's also mycophobic.
- Parental Abandonment: Caitlin leaves Bru and their one-year-old Maisie.
- Parting-Words Regret: A variant; Vix accepted Caitlin's All Take and No Give relationship because that was how they rolled, and she benefits from Caitlin being friends with her. When Caitlin is presumed dead, Vix thinks that if Caitlin is alive and calls her out of the blue to celebrate their fortieth birthday, she's going to finally insist they sit and talk about their issues.
- Raised by Grandparents: Lamb and his sister were raised by their grandmother after their parents died in a car crash As well as Caitlin's daughter Maisie after she abandons her.
- Really Gets Around: Phoebe while traveling in the summer; Caitlin follows suit.
- Surprise Pregnancy: Vix's sister Lanie gets pregnant when she's only seventeen.
- Teen Pregnancy: Lanie, to Maia's surprise.
- Unexpected Virgin: Caitlin. Despite her telling Vix that she lost her virginity to a ski instructor while on vacation and her giving Von oral sex while they're dating, she surprises Bru by bleeding when they have sex after Vix goes back to New Mexico for Nathan's funeral.
