Every Soul a Star

The middle section of the novel is full of emotions. The section begins with the three narrators apart and scared and moves toward the formation of Team Exo. The section thus tracks the movement from isolation to community, as each character moves from solitude to the beginnings of genuine friendship. As such, the middle of the novel functions as the narrative’s conflict, when the characters react to their new circumstances in a number of emotionally charged scenes.

The three characters are in turmoil emotionally as each initially handles the challenge of their completely new life. Each character struggles to understand the implications of change and how the life they thought was secure and stable can be so suddenly and completely lost. Ally has lost the campgrounds, Bree has lost her school, and Jack has lost his treehouse. Ally sees only that in the city she cannot be an astronomer and that she is not prepared to handle the complexities of a school environment; Bree knows that she will lose herself and her identity without friends to define her, and she is certain that when she does return from the three-year stint in the middle of nowhere she will somehow be too old to be a supermodel; Jack cannot explain why others are suddenly taking an interest in him and why, more to the point, he is taking an interest in others, and why the world he has so carefully constructed in his imagination seems suddenly childish.

To use Mass’s motif of the solar eclipse, this section functions like the moment of totality when the sun disappears and the Earth is suddenly pitched into scary darkness. The word eclipse, as Mass points out in the epigraph to the novel, comes from the Greek word meaning “abandonment.” Reassurance that the darkness is temporary does little to alleviate the anxiety and the panic.

Jack has spent his formative years creating alien civilizations in which his superheroes battle mutants in a world comfortably apart from him. It is all imagined, and he is the creator only. When, after saving young Pete’s life in the food line at the pavilion, Jack panics over the sudden adulation and heads to the protective shelter of the camp’s Sun Garden, he shows the same inclination to withdrawal and isolation that has defined his lonely life to that point. In the Garden, Jack shows how far he has come and how far he has still to go. His declaration, alone in the Garden, summarizes how each of the three narrators emerges from the initial shock of their new circumstances: Jack stands at the center of the Garden and demands of the cosmos, “Show me where I stand” (154). Where he stands begins with his developing crush on Ally. Watching her during her presentation, he admires her confidence, certainly, but he experiences a feeling of attraction that is new to him. Girls would have little to do with his old self. He is not willing to retreat any longer; he is ready to act. Of course, his quick determination that suddenly he is a “new person” sounds a bit too easy, but Jack is ready to come out of the shadows. He is ready to test his emerging sense of his identity.

That sense of emerging confidence and that courage of resolution also defines Ally and Bree in this middle section. They quickly see that their initial plan to trick their parents into canceling the move is childish, ineffective, and futile. The move is coming. They can no longer take their wisdom from zany escapades in kids’ movies. What they discover is the strength of friendship. Bree would never have associated with a girl like Ally. Ally, homeschooled her entire life, has only imaginary friends she pretends are on the stars she observes nightly. In addition, Bree’s beauty introduces Ally to the reality of the importance of appearance—of grooming and style. This conflict could have disastrous results: Bree could reject Ally for her unapologetic strangeness, her lack of social skills, and her plainness; Ally could reject Bree for her superficiality, her casual lack of curiosity, and her dependence on others for validation.

At that very darkest hour, however, the two open up to each other. Friendship, they see, does not rely on the logic of cliques—that is, hanging out only with others with similar backgrounds and traits. Despite the tight time frame of the novel (the entire action takes place in 21 days), the author does not make the transition here easy. Ally still fears her new life in the city, far from what she knows. Because she knows now that it will signal the end of her time at the camp, she cannot entirely enjoy the eclipse she has waited three years to witness. Bree, for her part, cannot bear to look at her boxes full of jewelry, designer clothes, and shoes. No one in this camp will care how she looks. For the first time, she suspects that might be a good thing. Her hesitation to enter the Labyrinth, however, indicates how much she still dreads that the cosmos might validate her darkest fear: Without other kids to admire her looks, she is no one. However, Bree now cares about the validation of something wider and broader than the other popular kids in her school. Like Ally and Jack, she has begun her journey out of the shadows.

The unexpected absence of the science teacher Mr. Silver triggers what becomes Team Exo. His sudden departure gives the kids the chance to work together after Mr. Silver’s actual assistant, Stella’s surly grown-up son, declines to conduct the experiment with a bunch of kids. These kids, however, see an opportunity. As the team forms, each of them brings very adult competencies to the project. At this moment, the narrative transitions from the darkness of totality and into a new kind of illumination. The section thus closes with the promise of a new reality for each of the kids. They open up to each other and help each other.