Character Analysis
Jeremy Fitzgerald is an immigration attorney who's confident he can stop Natasha's deportation at the last minute. Coincidentally—or in a twist of fate, as Daniel would say—he's also the Yale alum with whom Daniel's supposed to have his application interview.
Hannah is his paralegal, and she always felt like a background character in other people's stories...until she started working for Jeremy. She fell in love with her boss and saw him as her Prince Charming, even though he was already a married father of two. After Jeremy's near-death experience when he gets hit by Donald Christiansen's car, he comes to terms with the fact that he loves Hannah, too.
Hannah may have felt like an unimportant character in other people's lives, but she's not. Nobody is. In fact, her romance with Jeremy drastically affects others' lives, including our main players, Daniel and Natasha.
Because he and Hannah decide to get busy at a hotel, Jeremy misses his court appointment and can't get Natasha's family's deportation order overturned. He breaks the news to Daniel during what was supposed to be the Yale interview.
Daniel is crushed, and he tells Jeremy he doesn't even know if he wants to go to Yale or to college at all. Even though Jeremy tells him the time to make mistakes and do crazy things is when you're young, he ultimately advises that Yale could open a lot of doors for Daniel, just like it did for him. Daniel accurately points out that Jeremy did everything right and followed the traditional path to success, yet his life is still in shambles.
Jeremy can't stop thinking about this conversation, and just a week after the Kingsleys are sent back to Jamaica, he leaves his wife and eventually marries Hannah. His existing children's lives are changed forever; they're unable to keep stable relationships after seeing the demise of their parents' marriage.
On the other hand, we're told that Jeremy and Hannah live happily ever after, and their future children grow up with an example of a loving, supportive marriage.
This love story stirs up all sorts of tough philosophical questions.
- For instance, Jeremy and Hannah's happiness upends the lives of multiple people—but since they just want to be happy too, is that their fault?
- Is it even possible for Jeremy and Hannah to be "meant to be" since Jeremy was already married to somebody else? (We're guessing his ex-wife and kids would say no.)
- Is the betrayal of their affair or the injustice of Jeremy's missed court appointment mitigated in any way by the fact that Jeremy and Hannah do end up together?
Like we said, it's tough, and Nicola Yoon purposely leaves the outcome of their situation ambiguous: "All of which isn't to say that Jeremy Fitzgerald did the right thing or the wrong thing. It's only to say this: Love always changes everything" (297).