MAIN CHARACTERS
These two sisters are the main protagonists of the novel.
Who are Sky and Phee?
The novel takes place in this ruined American city.
What is New York City?
The girls discover journal entries that reveal hidden truths about this person.
Who is their mother (Mama)?
This theme explores how trauma affects the sisters’ memories and decisions.
What is the lasting impact of violence?
In Red Orchards, the girls must turn in these every summer, keeping their movements restricted.
What are their freedoms (or possessions/papers)?
This sister keeps journals that reveal the truth about the past.
Who is Sky?
This annual event forces the girls and other prisoners into strict confinement each summer.
What is the Summer of Submission?
Ryan helps the sisters do this when they decide they can no longer stay in Red Orchards.
What is escape (leave the compound)?
The journals symbolize this type of truth.
What is hidden history or memory?
The people of Red Orchards grow and trade this to survive.
What is food (vegetables, basic crops)?
This sister is more aggressive, bold, and eager to fight back against control.
Who is Phee?
This group controls the city through fear, violence, and surveillance.
Who are the Wardens?
Sky and Phee uncover the truth that the Wardens’ rule is based on this.
What is lies and manipulation?
The sisters’ bond represents strength through this.
What is family or sisterhood?
The Wardens use this type of weapon to maintain fear.
What are guns (or firearms)?
He is the mysterious boy who helps the sisters escape and has ties to the Wardens.
Who is Ryan?
This place becomes the girls’ summer home—part prison, part community.
What is Red Orchards?
This discovery about their father reshapes the sisters’ understanding of the war and their childhood.
He was connected to the Wardens / involved in the war.
New York City’s ruins symbolize the collapse of this.
What is civilization (or humanity)?
Sky often writes in her journals at this time of day, when she feels safest.
What is nighttime?
This woman rules Red Orchards with strict authority and a hidden past.
Who is Mama?
This war destroyed the U.S. and created the isolated society the girls grew up in.
What is World War III?
The climax of the story involves the sisters fighting for this ultimate goal.
What is freedom (or survival outside the Wardens’ control)?
The Wardens symbolize this dangerous concept often found in dystopias.
What is authoritarianism (total control)?
This final revelation explains why Mama acted so harshly toward the girls.
What is her guilt and trauma from the war / hiding the truth about their past?