46 pages • 1 hour read
Neal ShustermanA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Ashley “Ash” Bowman is the novel’s protagonist and first-person narrator. He is a white heterosexual American teenager who inadvertently learns to shift between different versions of the universe. As a result, in some parts of the story, Ash finds himself, in different realities, to be a gay young man and a young woman; in each case, these new identities affect his relationships and character growth.
Ash has a younger brother, Hunter. Though they do not get along well at first, in the following universes, the two brothers are much closer. Experiencing these relationships prompts Ash to decide to work on his relationship with Hunter when he gets back to his original world. As for the boys’ parents, their dad initially sells auto parts while their mom works as a nutritionist. In later universes, however, their dad has a successful football career and, although their family is much wealthier, the Bowman parents are less supportive and more absent from their sons’ lives. Ash, for instance, learns that he has been dealing drugs from his father’s store; driven by his original moral code, he now vows to stop.
Ash plays on his high school football team, which is originally called the Tibbetsville Tsunamis before being renamed to the Blue Demons, then the Gray Demons, in other universes. He is a defensive tackle and describes himself as “sturdy” and “solid [like] an oak” (3). Ash states: “It would be a stretch to say that football was my life—but a lot of my life revolved around it” (3). Football is a recurring motif throughout the story, with the game itself serving more broadly as a metaphor for life.
At first, while Ash is aware of his privilege on a surface level, he does not give much thought to marginalized people’s experiences. He is comfortable enjoying Passive Privilege Versus Active Allyship. This attitude prompts Leo to tell him: “You’re like a horse with blinders [...]. You never see anyone’s point of view but your own” (59). When Ash finds himself in a universe where segregation is still upheld in the United States, Ash soon becomes ashamed, realizing that this reality’s version of him is not much different from who he is in his original reality. This realization causes him to reflect on his inaction and ignorance. Ash also learns to see things from a different perspective when he becomes gay and then when he becomes a girl. In the end, Ash uses his skills and new maturity to return to his original universe. He is now able to understand his place in the world as well as his responsibility toward others, and he is hopeful about the future.
Leo is Ash’s best friend throughout all universes. He is Black, and though Ash initially minimizes Leo’s experience with systemic racism, Leo pushes Ash to empathize with perspectives other than his own.
In the original universe, Leo is a successful, popular quarterback who goes to the same school as Ash. His sister, Angela, is also bright, outgoing, and popular. In some of the other universes, Leo goes to a different school because of segregation and works as a cashier to make ends meet. In those worlds, Angela has died from meningitis a few years earlier. In the last universes, Leo is arrested for tackling his boss, who was about to shoot an unarmed man.
In all worlds, Leo is friendly and supportive of Ash, including when the latter comes out as gay, when he is a girl, and when he shares unsettling information about the other universes with him. Leo also directly and indirectly teaches Ash about the impact of systemic racism, such as when he and his girlfriend, Cerise, warn Ash that taking action against desegregation poses a greater risk for Black students than white ones. In the end, Ash returns things to normal, and Leo is looking forward to hearing back from the prestigious colleges he applied to.
Katie is Ash’s classmate and, at least initially, his crush. They have been friends since they were children. Katie is now a cheerleader, and she is currently dating Layton, though Ash suspects that she is merely going through the motions of what is expected of her: “You know how some people see a stereotype, and just become it? [...] And so it is and ever shall be, the quarterback and the cheerleader, in every school, in every town, now and forever, amen” (11).
Throughout every universe, Katie is supportive of Ash, who encourages her to leave Layton not because of Ash’s own interest in Katie but because Ash can see that Layton is stifling her. Katie refuses. Although she is not entirely happy, she claims that she loves Layton. Because of her closeness with Ash, Katie is also one of the few people who knows about the different universes and can remember pieces of the previous ones.
In the end, when Ash returns the universe to its original form, leaving Layton paralyzed, Katie decides to stay with him, at least temporarily. Her character arc ends on a bittersweet note, with Ash commenting, “No matter how awful your boyfriend is, you don’t walk away from him while he’s in intensive care. [She would] break up with him at the right time, but [...] after what happened, all the worlds where Katie and I could be together were lost in Elsewhere” (383).
Layton is the star quarterback of the Tibbetsville Tsunamis. He and Ash initially tolerate each other, although Ash silently disapproves of his treatment of Katie, his girlfriend. Throughout the story, Layton’s control and possessiveness toward Katie intensify. He is prone to anger during football games and quick to blame his teammates when they make mistakes. Most significantly, his relationship with Katie becomes increasingly problematic. Layton tends to dictate Katie’s appearance and behavior, pushing her until she snaps at him, after which he coerces her into accepting his apology.
Ash explains that Layton lives in “a world of winners and losers, with nothing in between. […] Anything that didn’t conform to that singular vision had to be bent, bound, and broken until it did” (363). This assessment suggests that this character can be viewed as a negative version of Ash, or what Ash could have become had he chosen to embrace his privileged perspective rather than challenge it. Layton’s violent side gradually escalates throughout the story until he attacks Ashley, his girlfriend in the very last universe, for kissing Paul. Ash further notes, “Even if they begin with good intentions, in their heart of hearts abusers believe love is about control. They believe it’s about possession” (321).
In the end, Layton is paralyzed in a car accident, leading Ash to prod at the theme of Gray Morality again in light of Layton’s character arc. Ash wonders “if this was a tragedy or karma” (383), contemplating whether this outcome for Layton is just: “Does a man who would hit a woman deserve to lose the use of those hands, like some sort of biblical judgment—and to suffer months in intensive care for something that took place in an entirely different reality? Layton was clearly capable of that kind of abuse here—but did capable make him culpable?” (383).
Paul is Ash’s math tutor in every universe. Initially only a friend, Paul is revealed to be Ash’s boyfriend in the universe where the latter is gay. Throughout the novel, their relationship develops, and Paul is depicted as thoughtful and bright. On realizing that he is in love with Paul, Ash decides not to tell him about the other universes for fear of breaking his heart, as success for Ash would mean returning to their original universe, in which they are not together. In addition to challenging Ash’s Identity and Perspective on queerness and allyship, Paul actively fights against segregation. In the end, Ash is back to his old self and states that “three-sevenths of [him] was in love with Paul. But the rest saw him as a friend” (379).
The Edwards, nicknamed as such by Ash, are “multidimensional beings that project into [the] world in [the] camouflaged form” (125) of identical teenagers on skateboards. They have an eerie quality about them that prevents Ash from remembering what they truly look like. As there is one Edward per universe, they begin as twins when Ash shifts for the first time and end up as sextuplets in the ultimate universe.
They are mysterious creatures whose role is to “quell disturbances” (125) in the universe by identifying the current “subjective locus” (or center of the universe) and teaching them how to safely shift universes. The Edwards train Ash, warning him that if he fails to return the universe to its original form, a black hole will swallow it.
Although they look identical, the Edwards’ behaviors and motivations can be quite different. When he meets the first three, Ash names them Ed, Edd, and Eddy, after popular American cartoon characters, to reflect their personalities. He then names the following ones Eduardo, Teddy, and Ned. Teddy deceives Ash into almost deleting the entire universe, and the other Edwards ostracize him. In the end, the remaining Edwards give up on Ash, attempting to orchestrate his death to save the universe. When even that fails, the Edwards flee, prepared to let the black hole consume the universe. Ash succeeds only at the last minute. Back in Ash’s original reality, a singular Edward—all the versions now integrated into one—visits him in the hospital to let him know that he has a bright future ahead of him.
By Neal Shusterman