45 pages • 1 hour read
Sarah AdamsWhen in Rome: A Novel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Inherent Tension Between Celebrity and Authenticity
Adams predicates the novel’s inciting incident—her decision to take a break from her life—on Amelia’s desperate need to reconnect with her authentic self, which has become obscured by her celebrity persona. Amelia goes to Rome precisely because she needs a break from the world of celebrity in which her public persona has become increasingly disconnected from the things that truly matter to her. Amelia’s inner monologue throughout the novel frequently refers back to her feelings about being subsumed by her career and the demands of her manager, the novel’s primary antagonist. Amelia’s initial fears about getting involved with Noah center on her worries that her manager won’t like it. As Amelia explains, “Susan has forbidden [her] from dating a normal guy when [Amelia’s] considered it in the past […] Unfortunately, [she’s] also forbidden from cupcakes, any sort of exhilarating activity, or blinking without Susan’s consent” (81). The amount of control Susan has over Amelia’s life, career, and everyday choices leaves Amelia increasingly beholden to the expectations and opinions of everyone but herself. The world she inhabits as a celebrity makes her feel like she must be perfect at all times. When Noah first recognizes her as the pop star Rae Rose, Amelia describes the process of subtly shifting into her celebrity persona saying, “I step back into my Rae Rose skin. It’s softer, gentler—more regal than mine. Rae Rose is everyone’s best friend. She’s pliable and easy to love” (24).
Amelia continually emphasizes the line she has drawn between herself and Rae Rose, especially as her career has progressed. Though she initially chose the stage name for deeply personal reasons, using her middle name and her mother’s nickname for her, Amelia comes to hate Rae Rose as a constructed entity, telling Noah, “Rae Rose just absorbed me. I feel like I haven’t been Amelia in so long. Except for you and your sisters, everyone just calls me Rae now” (204). In Rome, Amelia can shed her persona as Rae Rose for a few days, allowing her a rare moment of perspective and an opportunity to reconnect with her authentic self. Though she is uncomfortable with it at first, not knowing how to deal with people who don’t treat her as anything more than a pop star, she settles into her life as a normal person again, especially as she spends time around Noah. Amelia notes that Noah “just lets [her] live like [she’s] normal” and “[she] can’t explain how wonderful that is,” emphasizing her desire to regain autonomy in her own life. Though Amelia returns to performing as Rae Rose at the end of the novel, she has grappled with the ways fame tears her away from her authentic self and takes back control of her life and career, integrating her public persona and her private self.
The Importance of Mental and Emotional Health
Adams equates Amelia’s decision to take a break from her celebrity life with a choice to prioritize her mental and emotional health, both of which are in crisis at the beginning of the novel. Amelia feels “shut down” and “numb” from the constant pressures of fame (9). She struggles especially with the way fame has turned the music she once loved into something she can no longer enjoy. She feels trapped in her life and at the mercy of those around her. The loss of autonomy in her own life creates a sense of disconnect from her authentic self, eroding her mental and emotional well-being.
Adams highlights how Amelia’s time in Rome provides a new perspective on her celebrity world, particularly her relationship with her manager. She feels deeply hurt by the ways Susan disregards her mental and emotional health, just ignoring her struggles in favor of advancing her career. Though she previously accepted this behavior as normal, her time in Rome allows her to see it for what it is: control and manipulation. Amelia now understands that Susan doesn’t see her, especially when she generalizes her struggles and suggests that “[w]e’re all tired” (65), rather than recognizing Amelia’s unique circumstances.
Adams frames Amelia’s eventual firing of Susan as a decision to put her mental and emotional health first. Amelia tells Susan, “If you had truly cared about me, you would have been looking after my well-being, too. Noticing that you were working me into the ground. That I was so lonely without my mom. But instead, you were so consumed with making more money that you just used me” (267). Amelia’s final confrontation with Susan demonstrates her personal growth and the importance she places on her own well-being.
Adams reinforces the novel’s thematic interest in the importance of mental and emotional health through the supporting plotlines of the secondary characters. The Walker siblings come together to deal with the trauma of their parents’ death and their grandmother’s worsening Alzheimer’s. Emily and Noah discuss the ways their trauma is even more pronounced as the older siblings, saying, “We are old enough to remember exactly what it felt like that day when we got the call about [our parents]. And so we know exactly where our trauma comes from, whereas [our younger sisters] feel it, but don’t always know why” (277). Both Emily and Noah face the pressure of taking care of their younger siblings, feeling as if they need to be there for them at all times, which has caused them to neglect their own mental and emotional health. By the novel’s conclusion, Noah learns to recognize his past trauma and heartbreak and begins to heal from it to be with Amelia. In doing so he learns the importance of addressing his emotional health concerns rather than ignoring them.
Loving Things for Sentimental Reasons
Adams introduces Noah’s family’s (simply named) Pie Shop as a symbol of the special, personal meaning of ordinary things and the added value and importance such sentiment imbues. When Noah tells Amelia he doesn’t like pie even though he owns a pie shop, she is shocked until he asks, “Have you never loved something just for what it means to you?” (48). Noah’s pie shop was passed down to him by the grandmother who raised him and, despite his disinterest in pie, he thinks of it as home. In the first introduction to Pie Shop, Noah looks sentimentally upon “a tiny kitchen where [his] mom, and [his] grandma, and her mom before her, and her mom before her baked [their] Walker family pies with their secret recipes,” describing how “very little about it has changed over the years” (34-35). Throughout the novel, his memories of his grandmother often relate to seeing her at the shop or making pie, showing how much pie means to Noah even though he doesn’t like the taste of it.
Over the course of the novel, Amelia finds sentimental meaning and value in the town of Rome itself and the life she’s beginning to build with Noah. Amelia immediately understands what Noah means by loving something “just for what it means to you” (48). She thinks back to a memory of waking up from a bad dream when she was younger and her mother telling her, “I have the perfect cure for bad dreams. Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Audrey Hepburn always makes me feel better when I’m upset” (49). The moment gave rise to Amelia’s obsession with Audrey Hepburn and her movies, which always made her think of happier times with her mother. She uses Hepburn to feel close to her mother despite their continually deteriorating relationship. Amelia takes her trip to Rome to get closer to her old self, a choice inspired by the Audrey Hepburn movie, Roman Holiday. Ultimately, Amelia comes to love Rome itself because of what it means to her. In Rome, Amelia can be herself. In the epilogue, Amelia decides to live in Rome permanently, where she is happiest. To Amelia, Rome symbolizes freedom, a community, and a home with Noah.
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