Where It All Goes Down
Any Urban Place in the 21st Century
The where and when of all the action in Why We Broke Up is vague, giving the book a universal quality. The geographical location is never explicitly named, though certain details (like the existence of public transportation and two arty movie theaters) suggest that the story unfolds somewhere in the urban United States. The majority of the locations in the book, though—Hellman High School, people's houses, and a variety of coffee shops—are fairly generic. A sprinkling of more offbeat locales (like the fancy Russian restaurant and the Blue Rhino club) add color without giving us any clues to the setting's GPS coordinates.
Similarly, it's impossible to pinpoint exactly when the book takes place. We know that Min and Ed dated from October 5 to November 12, and that the text itself is a letter that Min writes on a sunny day in December, several weeks after the breakup. But while the book feels contemporary, and Min mentions it's the 21st century (16.62), the year is never specified.
The text is chock full of pop culture references—mostly for films—all of them are fake, so they're not tied to our calendar in the real world (see "Allusions" for the full rundown). Min seems to live in an alternate universe that's very similar to our own, which gives the book a highly relatable quality.