Eggs

In Flipped, eggs become super important when Juli hatches six chicks for her fifth grade science fair project. And here's why eggs become extra important: candling.

We can't lie, candling is a pretty neat technique. Here's the deal: to candle an egg you use light to see through an egg's shell and check out what's happening underneath. And Juli gets pretty great at candling her science fair eggs. It gives her a sneak peek into the chicks she's growing: "On the outside eggs were boring, but I knew what was happening on the inside!" (6.76). Super cool, right?

With just a little light and some patience, Juli gives herself x-ray vision—and she's pretty jazzed that she can see past the egg's surface and check out what's happening inside the shell. We can't say we blame her.

So these eggs remind us that it's important to look beneath the surface. After all, it's what's inside that counts. Unfortunately for our characters, though, they can't candle the people in their lives to see what's really going on underneath their surfaces. This might help Bryce to realize that Garrett is actually pretty mean. Or help Mrs. Loski to see what her husband is really like. Or better yet, help Bryce hop on the Juli-is-awesome train a lot sooner than he does and spare them both some heartache in the process.

And there's even more going on with these eggs in this book. Bryce hates eggs and Juli loves them, after all, which is just another way that these two are never on the same page. So these eggs also symbolize the way our main man and leading lady just can't agree on anything—not even eggs… until the very end, when maybe they can.