Geoff's Career (Allegory)
Geoff's career serves as an allegory and reflection of June's own career. Much like June, Geoff is a white author whose first novel failed to garner as much attention as he thought it deserved. However, unlike June, Geoff was unable to outrun accusations made against him of racist behavior—where June is at first able to deflect critique of her position as a white author writing about Chinese culture and heritage, Geoff makes his prejudice evident online and suffers the consequences. Geoff's career demonstrates to June the consequences that she may face if she drops the pretense she adopts as an author who is supposedly committed to elevating historically marginalized voices. In the end, of course, she, like Geoff, is unable to hide her own envy and anger, and expresses her dissatisfaction during a recorded confrontation with Candice.
Direct Messaging and Communication (Motif)
Throughout the novel, June is plagued by the immediate access that others have to her through direct messaging made available by social media platforms. She is constantly receiving DMs, most notably from the @AthenaLiusGhost account, which eventually leads her to believe she's lost her sense of reality. As the novel weaves in moments of direct messaging, it demonstrates how the boundaries between the private and public have become porous—how producing art and putting it into the world now means the artist subjects herself to being always open or available for criticism from anyone, since direct messaging has forged an instantaneous communication channel between the artist and the public.
Video Conferencing (Symbol)
While video conferencing may not stand out as a symbol at first, June's constant video meetings with her publishing team function as a symbol for the lack of real connection or loyalty there is within their relationships. June is always conferencing in over video—distanced, detached, and lacking a real connection with the people who control the fate of her career and life. The medium of communication here becomes a symbol of the exploitative and impersonal relationship publishing houses have toward the writers that they represent.
Voting (Symbol)
June and her sister Rory both reference the candidate who an individual votes for as a symbol of their general ethical and moral value. For example, when June's novel gains traction among conservative alt-right commentators, she feels no need to intervene; she voted for Biden, which she cites as enough of an excuse to release her from participating any further in proving herself as someone who sympathizes with left-wing politics. For June and Rory, voting becomes a symbolic action that excuses them from feeling an impetus toward political action in any more substantial manner.
Writing (Symbol)
The way that June describes it, the act of writing is a process that allows the writer to totally create new worlds, both within the stories they write and through the success that they achieve in bringing this writing to the public through publishing. Writing symbolizes freedom—for June, who never felt like she fit in with her family, writing is the freedom that allowed her to write herself a new family in her first novel, reimagining the bonds that in real life never gave her the kind of love that she wanted.
