49 pages • 1 hour read
The True Love Experiment
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Symbols & Motifs
Fizzy’s Books
Fizzy’s books, in a literal sense, symbolize her career and ambition, but they also symbolize romance as a beloved fiction genre and allow the characters to reflect on attitudes toward popular entertainment more generally. This expands to include the reality dating TV show later on. Fizzy’s books illustrate the variety of romance plots and are sometimes a gentle in-joke about the world of romance. For instance, her titles often evoke genre tropes or stereotypes about romances. She mentions Cloaked Lust in the Prologue, which immediately invites a deprecatory assessment of the book’s literary value. Other titles are meant to show Fizzy’s range as an author. When Connor is going through Nat’s bookshelves, he finds Ravenous on the High Seas, which includes “a lost heir, a sword-wielding heroine, a country on the brink of war, and hidden treasure that could save them all” (28)—a book low on realism but high on fantastic appeal. Later, Fizzy admits that one of her books was a hit because it capitalized on the interest in DNADuo technology, showing how the romance genre is responsive to trends in popular culture.
The appeal of Fizzy’s books is a reflection of her appeal as a person; the reviews in Entertainment Weekly and the invitations to give commencement addresses show that she is highly regarded in her field and by her readers, no matter how others might denigrate her genre. Her love of writing is also part of who Fizzy is as a person. The writer’s block she experiences after she realizes that she’s never had a real romance gives her an opportunity to grapple with her identity. Thereafter, Fizzy’s ineffective attempts at writing prove she is still struggling emotionally. While her ability to outline a story after Connor rejects her shows that she is working her way back to wholeness, her work in the coffee shop shows that despite her heartbreak, she is getting back on track with understanding herself and knowing what she wants. This rediscovery of her identity as a writer, of the joy of sharing her stories with readers, puts her on track for the happy conclusion of her own love story at the end.
DNADuo
As the premise for the reality dating TV show Connor designs, the DNADuo technology stands in for the mysterious grounds for attraction and sexual compatibility between two people, which is sometimes framed in biological terms. What draws a person to one partner over another can often seem inexplicable, a complicated algorithm no less complex than the many elements that go into DNA. Through the course of the show, the question of which Hero has the highest DNADuo match with Fizzy adds to the suspense, as it complicates the question of how Fizzy and Connor will get together if her numbers show her better matched with someone else. In the end, Fizzy shows her disregard for convention or rules by telling Connor she doesn’t care what their combined DNADuo results are; she wants him anyway, proving the unruliness of sexual passion and desire. Even so, they are a highly ranked match, so the DNADuo results legitimize and explain their shared attraction.
Wonderland
The boy band Wonderland mostly symbolizes the kinds of entertainment that people simply love, even if there is little logical impetus for the attachment. Stevie’s interest in the band is first phrased as an adolescent crush, coincident with a lack of discernment or real evaluation of quality and taste. That Fizzy also loves Wonderland works against the conception that boy bands and their music are simply for pre-adolescent girls; Fizzy and others at the Wonderland concert prove that fan bases can be varied and eclectic. The energy and enjoyment that all of them feel at the concert is part of the reward of the experience. This notion of fandom continues with the public interest in Connor and Fizzy’s relationship, when shippers (fans championing a relationship between two celebrities or characters) create a combined name for them: Cizzy. Fizzy hears an echo of the Wonderland fandom when Connor comes onstage during the finale of the reality show and she hears “cheering mixed with pockets of outright screaming” (384). This indicates the joy that such entertainments produce for their fans and the level of attachment that fans generate in response.
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By Christina Lauren
