42 pages • 1 hour read
Real Friends
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BetaChapters 1-2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1, Pages 2-16 Summary: “Adrienne”
In Salt Lake City in 1979, Shannon begins kindergarten. She has never had to make friends before and cries when her mom drops her off. Her mom assures her that she will soon feel comfortable in her class. Sure enough, Shannon soon makes friends with a girl in her class named Adrienne. They play many pretend games together. They imagine that they are Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders with animal sidekicks who help them defeat their adoring fans. Shannon’s mother is glad that she has a friend. Shannon reads a book, and in another room, her mother talks on the phone. She expresses concern for Shannon’s older sister, Wendy, implying that Wendy does not have any friends.
At six years old, Shannon is the middle child. Her two older sisters, Laura and Wendy, are nine and 11, and her younger two siblings, Joseph and Cynthia, are one and two. Shannon feels out of place in her family, without anyone to be close to. Her younger siblings’ games are too childish for her, but her older sisters do not want to include her in their games. She is glad to have Adrienne as her best friend. One day, she is so happy to see Adrienne that she kisses her on the cheek, but Adrienne turns away, looking uncomfortable.
Chapter 1, Pages 17-33 Summary: “Adrienne”
Shannon and Adrienne remain friends and eventually begin second grade together. Suddenly, lots of other kids show interest in being Adrienne’s friend. One day, as Shannon and Adrienne walk home from school, two boys accost them. One boy grabs Shannon, while the other grabs Adrienne and kisses her. Shannon is horrified and imagines herself as a superhero like Wonder Woman, fending off Adrienne’s attacker. She manages to fight off the boys and yells at them to leave her and Adrienne alone. The boys run away, but Adrienne is upset with Shannon. She tells Shannon that she wanted the boy to kiss her. Shannon insists that he should have asked her first, and Adrienne agrees.
Adrienne’s parents buy a new house, and Adrienne switches to a different school. Shannon is lonely and sad. She prays for Adriene to move back to her old house. At school, she is introduced to Tammy. Shannon’s neighbors are Tammy’s foster family, and the principal asks Shannon if she will be Tammy’s friend. Shannon agrees, albeit reluctantly, and shows Tammy the neighborhood on their way home from school. Shannon tries to play pretend with Tammy, but Tammy does not understand what they are doing. She is more interested in putting on a fashion show with dolls. Shannon keeps wishing that Adrienne would move back. Months later, Tammy leaves to live with her mom. Shannon does not hug her goodbye, and Tammy looks sad. Then, Shannon’s wish has come true: Adrienne and her parents have moved back into their old house.
Chapter 2, Pages 34-47 Summary: “Jen”
Shannon and Adrienne start third grade. Shannon is overjoyed to have Adrienne back at school with her, but she quickly realizes that she cannot have Adrienne all to herself. Adrienne is also friends with Jen, as the two attend the same church. Jen is a popular girl. There are many Jennifers at their school, but Jen is the only one who goes by “Jen” instead of “Jenny” or “Jennifer.” Shannon sees that Jen and Adrienne have a lot in common and worries that Adrienne would prefer to have Jen as a best friend instead of her.
Jen is the leader of her ring of friends. They are called The Group. Everyone wants to be friends with Jen and a member of The Group. Adrienne is a member, but Shannon is not sure if she is. Some of the other girls in The Group tease Shannon, but later, she learns that Jen likes her because she is honest. At recess one day, Shannon officially joins The Group. Jen makes all the girls line up in order of who she likes best. Shannon is placed last. She thinks about her own family and how she often feels like the odd one out. She is used to being in last place.
Chapter 2, Pages 48-57 Summary: “Jen”
Shannon often feels scared about being alone. Her older sister, Wendy, calls her a crybaby. Her mother reminds her of an affirmation: “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” (50). Shannon observes that there are rules for being in The Group, but she has a hard time working out what the rules are. In order to sit next to Jen at lunch, the girls call “dibs” on a seat. Shannon feels anxious and begins obsessively counting the bricks on the wall between the classroom and the lunch room.
Despite often feeling left out, Shannon introduces Adrienne and Jen to a pretend game where they are all Charlie’s Angels. Jen has fun, and Shannon starts to move up in The Group. However, members of The Group are not allowed to be friends with people who are not in The Group. A girl named Heidi invites Shannon over to play with dolls together. Jenny, Jen’s best friend, starts teasing Shannon for liking dolls. Shannon does not understand why the other girls think that playing with dolls is a bad thing, but she rejects Heidi to save her position in The Group. Shannon tells Adrienne that Jenny was mean to her, but Adrienne tells her to stop being so sensitive.
Chapter 2, Pages 58-65 Summary: “Jen”
On the last day of school, Shannon is excited to show her parents her report card. Wendy and her dad are arguing about Wendy’s grades. She has not completed some school work but insists that her teacher lost the assignment. Shannon shows their dad her report card, which is full of As. Wendy is jealous. On Sundays, Shannon’s dad reads them all passages of scripture. He compares Shannon to Joseph because, like Shannon, Joseph was “righteous” and “obeyed his parents and God” (58). Shannon compares Wendy to Joseph’s brothers because they were mean to Joseph. Wendy often gets angry with Shannon. Shannon tries to be nice to Wendy, but that often makes Wendy’s anger worse. Shannon does not understand Wendy’s behavior.
Toward the end of summer, Jen invites Shannon to come with her family to their cabin on Bear Lake. None of the higher-ranking girls in The Group were able to go, so Jen settled for Shannon. Shannon is very excited. She and Jen have a fun time and become closer friends. They swim in the lake, play pretend games, and sing songs together.
Chapters 1-2 Analysis
The first two chapters of Real Friends introduce Shannon, her family, and her first few attempts at making friends. Shannon’s primary goal and a central theme in the book is Forming Genuine Friendships with others. Adrienne is Shannon’s first friend, and the two manage to maintain their strong connection even though Adrienne briefly moves away. Sometimes, Shannon’s affections are not fully reciprocated. At several points, it seems as though her love for Adrienne is stronger than Adrienne’s love for her. This is most apparent when Shannon kisses Adrienne on the cheek, something she notes that she never did again after Adrienne looked uncomfortable. Shannon gradually becomes friends with Jen, but genuine friendship is difficult because Jen likes to rank her friends according to her preferences. It is only toward the end of this section that Shannon and Jen become real friends after spending time together at Jen’s cabin.
While Shannon idolizes Adrienne and Jen, she is less enthusiastic about her friendship with Tammy. Her feelings toward Tammy are lukewarm, as she wants her old best friend back. Shannon’s lack of interest in Tammy demonstrates Shannon’s occasional self-centeredness. She asks Tammy few questions about her life, even though Tammy clearly needs someone to talk to about her experiences being in foster care. Nobody explains foster care to Shannon in clear terms. Having grown up in a nuclear family and in a culture where divorce and single parenthood are extremely uncommon, she does not understand why Tammy does not live with her mother or why she only visits her mom and not her dad. Some of the things Tammy says imply that she has had a very difficult life. For instance, she says that her mother’s boyfriend “is really nice” because his only method of punishment is making Tammy “stand in the corner for five minutes” (31). Her metric for what makes an adult “really nice” is their chosen method of punishing her, not any genuinely kind behaviors they might display.
As Shannon grows up, she starts her journey of Coming of Age and Gaining Confidence. As the middle child of five siblings, Shannon has always felt out of place in her own family; none of her siblings are close to her in age. Early on in the book, Shannon’s mother tells someone on the phone that “she’s doing a lot better. She has a best friend” (13). Having a close friend does help Shannon feel more confident, but only having one friend turns out not to be enough when Adrienne leaves. It is also insufficient later when Adrienne makes more friends besides just Shannon. Shannon has not yet learned that while having friends is very important, her confidence also has to come from her belief in herself and not only from other people’s opinion of her. She has not been able to develop a strong sense of self-confidence, partly because she always feels as though she does not fit in at home. She constantly wants her mother’s attention, but she rarely gets it, as her mother is busy with five children. Several characters tell Shannon to be less clingy and sensitive, which she cannot put into practice.
Shannon desperately wants to have close friendships, but she is not always good at Setting Personal Boundaries. She feels uncomfortable with Jen’s practice of lining people up in her order of preference, but she does not say so. Sometimes, she allows social pressure to get to her because she finds setting boundaries difficult. She lets The Group pressure her into rejecting Heidi, even though she does not see what is wrong with playing with dolls. Although Shannon is still early in her journey when it comes to boundaries, there are two scenes in this section of the book where she steps up. First, she senses Adrienne’s discomfort at being kissed on the cheek, so she never repeats the behavior. Second, she gets the boys to leave her and Adrienne alone, and she explains to Adrienne that they should have asked before trying to kiss her. While setting boundaries can be hard for her, she is willing to do what is necessary to protect her best friend.
When Shannon counts the bricks on the wall, she displays symptoms of what she later realizes is likely OCD. When she goes to the nurse’s office with a stomach ache, she is experiencing anxiety. While OCD is different from other anxiety disorders, it is rooted in similar feelings. Obsessive-compulsive behaviors are one way for people to self-soothe and alleviate symptoms of anxiety. It is common for children to experience anxiety as non-specific physical symptoms like headaches and stomach aches.
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