Twisted Love

Weather symbolizes the emotional states of the characters throughout Twisted Love. Alex is often depicted as being emotionless, which is the reason Ava and her friends come up with Operation Emotion in the first place. Ava describes Alex as a “force of nature unto himself” and imagines that “even the weather bowed to him” (6), just as Alex bends his own emotions to his will, preferring them to be nonexistent.

Ava is likened to the sun every time Alex calls her “Sunshine.” Alex views Ava as “sweet and sunshiney” to the point where he “half expected flowers to sprout on the ground wherever she walked” (15). Considering that Ava is often described as cheerful, optimistic, trustful, and always willing to see the good in others, “sunshine” is a fitting comparison. Likewise, when Alex reveals his plan for vengeance against Michael, Ava is distraught, and the weather portrays this mood in a literal sense, for the winter, which had seemed beautiful and intriguing before, now “looked dull and gray. Lifeless” (263). Ava has been broken by Alex’s betrayal, and “the girl [she] used to be—the one who’d believed in light and love and the goodness of the world.