Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child abuse, emotional abuse, and antigay bias.

In Pucking Sweet, author Emily Rath explores the tension between being true to oneself and meeting family expectations. Throughout the novel, Poppy struggles between her desire for her powerful family’s approval and her self-castigation for continuing to desire it even in the face of their poor treatment. This creates, for Poppy, a feedback loop of negative feelings: She feels pain because her family treats her unkindly and then feels pain again because she believes that her desire for their approval is both illogical and a sign of her inadequacies. With this thought process, her anxiety becomes less directly about her family’s treatment and more about her damaged sense of self. Poppy struggles with her need for family approval and her disdain for herself for feeling this way, which she sees as a failure of self-confidence.

Although Poppy makes great strides throughout the novel in being more confident in her choices and her identity, her struggles with her family don’t have a clear resolution. Eventually, she does stand up to Annmarie—first over the phone and then by refusing to hide her relationship at Violet’s wedding—illustrating both her growth and increased self-esteem.