Next of Kin

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2022

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-11

Chapters 12-22

Chapters 23-33

Chapter 34-Bonus Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Chloe’s Apartment

Chloe’s apartment is the novel’s primary setting, and its present arrangement and history support Chloe’s character arc and the ideas present in What Makes a Family. Before the novel’s beginning, Chloe shared the apartment with Emily and Lane. After the other girls moved out, Chloe barely kept in touch, believing she’d always been on the outside of the friendship and not as close with either girl as Emily and Lane were with each other. When Emily and Lane come back into Chloe’s life through the course of the story, Chloe suddenly realizes the three of them were and are much closer than she ever realized. Rekindling and growing their relationship makes Chloe’s apartment a symbol of how much Chloe has changed and how important it is to find the people she wants to keep in her life. In Chloe’s eyes, Emily and Lane go from people she once roomed with to actual members of her found family, showing the types of bonds living together and sharing lives can forge.

Chloe’s apartment continues to be where families are built during the novel. When Warren and Luke first move in, they and Chloe have little to do with each other. Except for Willow, Chloe may as well be alone, which carries forward the apartment as “just a place to live,” as it had been in Chloe’s past. Once Chloe and Warren decide to share the responsibilities of their situation, the apartment’s significance in their lives starts to change. Particularly after they sign an agreement for Warren and Luke to live there, the apartment transforms from “just a place” to the place where four people live together and grow into something more. With the blooming of Chloe’s and Warren’s romance, the apartment becomes a home, representing how Warren’s later outburst doesn’t break him and Chloe apart. The apartment has become a safe space for both of them, which is why Chloe doesn’t fear Warren’s anger and why she goes to find him—because he deserves to feel safe, too. The Bonus Epilogue shows Chloe and Warren still living in the apartment five years after the story’s main events, symbolizing how the apartment continues to be a significant part of their lives.

CPS

CPS (Child Protective Services) represents the real-life government agency’s presence in the novel, as well as how Everything Happens for a Reason. From the beginning, CPS is both a boon and a problem for Chloe. The agency is what allows her to get Willow away from her birth mom for a chance at a better childhood, but it also prevents Chloe from outright gaining foster care for her sister due to its regulations. On a broader level, the role CPS plays in the novel symbolizes the real-life struggles kids face in the foster system and caregivers face in getting custody of their family members. The CPS system is shown being manipulated by those, like Warren’s father, who want the benefits it provides to foster parents. Luke’s father claims he wants to get custody of Luke, though he has not made any lifestyle changes that show he cares about his son, such as learning ASL. He does make a point of telling Luke that being a foster parent would mean he’d get money, which shows where his priorities truly lie and highlights the holes in the CPS system. Luke’s father is more concerned about himself than his son’s wellbeing, but he would still stand a better chance than Warren to get custody because Luke is his birth son.

CPS also encompasses the Team Up program, which supports What Makes a Family. Hannah Bonam-Young got the idea for the Team Up program from a news story about two grandparents who pooled their resources to meet CPS requirements and adopt their grandchildren. As strangers, Chloe and Warren’s situation is a bit different, but the principle of partnering up for the better of all still applies. The Team Up program represents the overall idea that teamwork allows people to accomplish what they cannot on their own. Rather than stifling independence, the program acknowledges that everyone needs help with something and gives caregivers a path forward where one didn’t exist before. The Team Up is also Chloe and Warren’s “meet-cute,” the part of a romance novel where the members of the central romance arc meet for the first time. Since Chloe and Warren go on to fall in love, get married, and get custody of Willow, the Team Up program also represents their romantic arc and the people they become as a result of working together.

Dove

Dove is Warren’s nickname for Chloe and the family name they choose in the Epilogue, and it is a symbol of peace, both generally and for Warren in particular. Across many mythologies, doves have been associated with peace and love because of their white coloration. Asherah, the mother goddess of the Middle Eastern Canaanite pantheon, was often depicted with doves representing peace, and this was passed to Aphrodite, the Greek love goddess, whose altars and temples were decorated with dove sculptures or purified with the blood of pure-white doves. Doves also symbolize peace in modern-day religions, holding places within Judaism, Islam, and branches of Christianity. In line with these representations, Warren nicknames Chloe “dove” because of the peaceful effect she has on him. Warren’s boss shortened his name to “War,” which stuck because Warren tended to get into fights. Thus, feeling peaceful is almost a novelty for Warren, which he notes starting the night of his and Chloe’s first kiss.

Dove is also the name Warren and Chloe decide to adopt as their family name in the Epilogue, cementing their dedication to peaceful lives for themselves and their siblings. After Warren bestows the nickname upon Chloe and she realizes the significance, Chloe matches his declaration by telling Warren he is her home. Chloe has always hoped for home to feel like a peaceful, safe place, and she also finds peace in Warren’s presence, which makes “Dove” a fitting family name for the two of them. Changing their name also represents a new beginning, and since this decision comes at the novel’s end, it symbolizes how the end of one story is simply the beginning of another. More deeply, changing their family name allows Chloe and Warren to leave their past selves behind. Chloe is no longer the girl who pushed herself aside to make room for what others wanted, and Warren doesn’t need his temper anymore because he is no longer defending himself or his loved ones from the world. Adopting “Dove” as a shared name shows that Chloe and Warren have faced their pasts and will face their futures together from a place of peace, not anger or fear.