Olive's Ocean

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains references to the death of a young person and the nonconsensual recording of a kiss.

“I hope that I can write a book someday […] And not a mystery or adventure one, but an emotional one. Maybe I can make kids change their opinions on emotion books like some authors did to me.”

Olive Barstow’s hope of writing an emotional book links to the purpose of Henkes’s novel. His book about Olive and Martha spotlights Martha’s interior life and shows how it impacts her relationship to the external world. This comment by Olive also connects the two protagonists, as both are introspective writers.

“There was nothing to indicate that this was the site of a tragedy. There were no bouquets or teddy bears piled along the curbside. No ribbons laced through the nearby fence.”

Coping With Loss and Death is a steady theme throughout the novel. At this point, Martha finds herself unsure of how to deal with the weight of Olive’s death, especially because she was a peer and wrote about Martha in her journal. Martha visits the site of the fatal accident and, unlike the other people in her community, she commemorates it. While she doesn’t explicitly understand her actions, she is healing from this loss through her emotional connection with Olive.

“Sometimes, Martha’s feelings for her mother bounced between love and hate quickly and without warning, as if her feelings were illogical, willful, and completely out of Martha’s control.”

Martha’s feelings move rapidly, and the aggressive diction in this quote—the words “bounced,” “illogical,” “willful,” and the phrase “completely out of control”—convey the volatility of her emotional world. Martha doesn’t have to domesticate or dilute her forceful emotions, but she learns to organize them.