“What was that like? To be the star in the movie of your life?”

Hannah Bellinger senses that she is the supporting actress, not the leading lady in her own life. This bridges her role as the sidekick sister in It Happened One Summer to its sequel, in which she is the protagonist. Her evolution from supporting role to leading lady will provide her motivation and chart her character arc through the novel. The rhetorical questions that Hannah asks herself in the lines above vary the rhythm of the prose.

“Imagine a packed bar full of courageous men who fear and respect the sea. Imagine them singing odes to the water. The ocean is their mother. Their lover. She provides for them. And everything in this town reflects that love of the sea.”

Hannah hints at the special relationship fishermen have with the water—a relationship her father had, and Fox Thornton has. Her reference to sea shanties foreshadows the music that Hannah will suggest for the movie after her grandmother gives her the sea shanties Henry wrote. Hannah uses romantic language when describing Westport to Sergei, personifying the ocean with human qualities.

“Fox had learned the hard way that he couldn’t escape the assumptions people made about him. […] Growing up, he’d ached to escape this town and the role his face—and to be fair, his actions—had carved out for him. God, he’d tried. But those expectations followed him everywhere. So he’d stopped trying.”

Fox will experience a character arc and transformation, escaping the limiting beliefs and self-destructive behaviors of his past and moving into healthier new opportunities with Hannah. The theme of healing and