Click

In these chapters, Olive’s emotional tension increases as she feels more and more isolated from her friends, and she comes to suspect that Learning How to Navigate Cliques is an impossible task for her. To portray the chaos of Olive’s inner thoughts and the pressures of her day-to-day life, Miller implements multiple narrative techniques, using both inner dreams and external conversations so that Olive can fully articulate her challenges and frustrations and seek practical advice. These chapters therefore accelerate the rising action as the emotional stakes rise and the protagonist encounters increasingly complex challenges.

These chapters also introduce Aunt Molly, one of the most important supporting characters in the graphic novel, for even in her very first appearance, her green hair and confident personality mark her as a person who is committed to honoring her own individuality and encouraging the self-expression of others. Her dyed green hair, boots, and crop top contrast sharply with the style of Olive’s mother, who is more conventionally dressed. Despite Aunt Molly’s unique appearance, her occupation and interests are not immediately clear, but these details are less important than the fact that Aunt Molly embodies the ideal confidence that Olive is still working to achieve. As Olive explores the different social groupings at school and analyzes the different methods that people use in order to gain acceptance, Aunt Molly’s approach to life teaches her that remaining true to one’s personal identity is far more important than molding a false public image around one specific interest. To support this philosophy, Aunt Molly gives Olive some well-chosen advice from her own background, reminiscing about the fact that she did not really find her most meaningful connections until college. While Olive’s mom is enmeshed in the day-to-day challenges of family life and tries to think of quick, practical solutions to Olive’s problems, Aunt Molly uses the benefit of her more detached perspective to give Olive a long-term view of her current troubles. By relating the longer timeline of her own life and giving Olive a preview of college and the dynamic life lessons to come, Aunt Molly indicates the importance of embracing The Interplay of Maturity and Autonomy in order to remain true to oneself.

Structurally, this section continues some of the elements presented in the beginning of the graphic novel and develops them further, particularly when it comes to the montages that illustrate Olive’s inner thoughts and fantasies. While most of the novel is grounded in Olive’s day-to-day experiences, Miller also inserts several whimsical sections that portray a more imaginative reinterpretation of realistic events. For example, the first section features a departure from reality when Olive daydreams about the different groups forming around her. Likewise, this second section features a key fantasy sequence when Olive has a dream that illustrates her subconscious feelings about conforming to these groups. As each group tries to claim her, Olive’s outfit changes and the illustrations portray her as a member of the group. These successive identity shifts make Olive feel uncomfortable and unrepresented, and by the end of the dream, she runs away, unwilling to adopt any single group or outfit. Here, clothing serves as a powerful symbol for representing the self and signifying belonging, and Olive’s refusal to choose highlights the ongoing strain of her private identity crisis. Miller also uses the homonyms “click” and “clique” to connect the feeling of ease of joining a clique that feels right, when things “click” into place. Yet for Olive, none of these groups really click for her.

This section also elaborates on the tension between the different communication styles that manifest in adolescence. While Aunt Molly advocates for a more direct and self-assured approach, like asking directly to join a group, Olive feels more comfortable with an indirect style. Rather than confronting any of her friends directly, she communicates her feelings of exclusion through moody silence and distressed body language, leaving her friends to wonder why she is upset. Even with her family, she often enters the conversation quietly, projecting her sadness with a glum facial expression or sigh rather than immediately articulating her emotions. These exchanges establish the fact that Olive is testing the people around her for their reactions, waiting to see whether they pay attention to her without her intervention. Although this strategy allows her to gather data about other people’s perceptions of her, she also relinquishes control of social situations to others, and if they do not respond as she expects them to, she is often left feeling isolated and misunderstood. Although Olive’s mother offers to adopt the direct role on her behalf by suggesting that the parents can mediate this difficulty, Olive immediately resists this idea because such an overt form of intervention would make her even more of a social outcast than she already perceives herself to be. Her resistance to her mother’s offer of help indicates Olive’s inner conflict as she tries to embrace her own autonomy and individuality. While she does not want her mom interfering with this process, she has not yet recognized the fact that brooding quietly and waiting for friends to invite her causes her to forfeit her autonomy in a different way.