Content Warning: This section discusses anti-Black racism. It depicts scenes of racial discrimination and racist violence.

Love, the withholding of love, or the inability to express love, is a thematically influential piece of Betty Before X. As Betty counts her blessings each night, she gives an insightful, poignant illustration of how many manifestations of love there are.

Shortly after Matilda takes Betty from Ollie Mae, she suddenly feels loved. The same thing happens with her aunt, Fannie Mae, and Betty wonders “how she got so good at loving” (4). When Fannie Mae dies, it’s clear that she and Matilda were Betty’s only concepts of love: “In just one day, I learned how love can disappear in an instant, like how if you blink you can miss the setting sun” (7).

On the other hand, Ollie Mae is harsher with Betty than with her other siblings. Early in the novel, Betty reveals that each night, she wonders what she can do to make Ollie Mae love her. When she moves in with Mrs. Malloy, Betty gets a new chance to consider the nature and variety of love. Mrs. Malloy “knows how to love, how to look at you in a crowd like you’re the only person she sees” (23).