45 pages • 1 hour read
Mikki Daughtry, Rachael LippincottAll This Time
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2020A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Kyle buys his girlfriend Kimberly a charm bracelet because they’ve been fighting, though he isn’t sure why. He wades through the crowd of familiar classmates at their high school graduation party. He and Kimberly are set to attend UCLA, but their friend Sam has been waitlisted. Kyle got injured playing football. Without his assistance, Sam didn’t do well enough playing to make the UCLA team. Kyle hopes that Sam gets off the wait list: “Not only is he the friend that’s stuck with me through the mess of this last year, but he’s the glue that holds our trio together. He’s the voice of reason in all things” (10).
Kyle can tell there’s something Kimberly and Sam aren’t telling him. Kimberly finally reveals that she’s going to Berkely, not UCLA. She’s known for months and hasn’t told Kyle. Angry, Kyle drives away. Kimberly follows him. It’s raining hard, and Kyle nearly gets into a car accident. He stops on the side of the road. Kimberly breaks up with Kyle because she wants to know who she is outside of their relationship. A car hits them from behind, sending their car into an incoming truck.
Chapter 2 Summary
Chapter 3 Summary
Chapter 4 Summary
Kyle is released from the hospital after two weeks. Kimberly died in the accident. In his bedroom, all of the belongings Kimberly used to keep there are gone, having been taken back by her parents.
Kyle uses his crutches to go on a walk. He finds himself at the ice cream store he used to go to with Kimberly and Sam. He realizes that “The reality of Kim being gone is a series of everyday heartbreaks” (Page 35). By the time he gets to the ice cream shop, he’s exhausted and in pain. He's forgotten his phone at home. He’s been avoiding Sam’s phone calls. Kyle goes to the movie theater to distract himself but leaves early, annoyed that he’s wasting his time. When he gets back home, he’s in pain and his mother is worried about him. He realizes that the world has kept on going, but that he has fundamentally changed.
Chapter 5 Summary
Chapter 6 Summary
As the summer passes, Kyle refuses to leave his room or see Sam. His mother confronts him about UCLA, which is starting soon. He decides to defer for two quarters but secretly plans on never going. Kyle suffers from flashbacks and painful memories. He flashes back to his football injury and watches with new eyes as Sam misses the chance to block the charge that injures Kyle, ending his football career. He confesses to his mom that he keeps seeing Kimberly or imaging her voice reaching out to him. Kyle’s father died when he was in kindergarten, and his mother understands his pain. She encourages him to keep going forward, never back. Kyle doesn’t know how to move forward without Kimberly, who had been there for him through many of his most difficult moments.
Chapter 7 Summary
Chapter 8 Summary
Kyle visits Kimberly’s grave for the first time. He hears a voice behind him narrating a story about a lonely boy. There is another girl in the graveyard with him, telling stories to herself. Her name is Marley, and she looks familiar. Kyle is in a lot of pain, and Marley suggests they go have lunch. At first, Kyle is hesitant; he doesn’t want to make any new friends. Then he remembers that he must live because Kimberly can’t, and agrees to lunch.
Chapter 9 Summary
Marley and Kyle go to the pond where there’s a snack shack. The pond was Kyle’s favorite place to meet up with Sam and Kimberly, and lunch with Marley brings back lots of memories. Kyle suddenly feels guilty that he’s having fun with Marley. He goes home and opens the box of belongings from the car accident. He finds Kimberly’s scarf, purse, and the bracelet he was going to give her. Kyle feels like his life is a betrayal of his memories.
Chapter 10 Summary
Kyle returns to Kimberly’s grave. He meets Marley again, who reveals that she visits the graveyard to honor her twin sister, who died when they were 14 years old. Marley gives Kyle a daisy as a symbol of hope. Marley and Kyle go to the pond again, where they buy popcorn to feed the ducks. Marley’s “shoulder brushes against my arm, lightly enough to leave a trail of goose bumps behind it” (83). Kyle’s mom is happy he’s making a new friend, but Kyle feels that it’s unfair since Kimberly is dead. Kyle decides not to see Marley anymore.
Chapter 11 Summary
Kyle goes to the cemetery in search of Marley to let her know they can’t be friends. When he finds her, she immediately intuits what he’ll say. He asks her about the symbolic meaning of a flower, and she tells him it can mean whatever he wants it to mean. Kyle realizes what he wants: “A new start. I catch the words just before they come out, the answer suddenly right in front of me. A way forward that doesn’t feel wrong” (91). Kyle admits that he wants a friend who didn’t know him before the accident so he can start over as the new person he wants to be. Marley and Kyle agree to be friends but emphasize that that’s all they’ll be.
Kyle lays in bed and hears a phone ringing. He realizes it’s coming from Kimberly’s purse. Horrified, he sees that there is an Unknown Caller. He wonders how the phone could still be on because it always had low battery. He answers the call and hears a staticky voice asking if Kyle can hear him. The phone goes dead. Kyle plugs it into charge; when he checks later the phone is gone. Kyle finds Kimberly’s belongings in his closet where he left them.
Chapters 1-11 Analysis
The car accident that leads to Kimberly’s death gives the narrative a tone of loss, while also jumpstarting the narrator’s character development. Kyle must deal with survivor’s guilt, shame, and grief. He isolates himself from everyone because of his guilt-induced depression. He is unable to enjoy the dreams he used to have, such as attending UCLA. The world outside of his bedroom is rife with reminders that he is alive while Kimberly is dead. Every road and store brings Kimberly back to life before the accident. His survivor’s guilt is tied with his impossible desire to go back in time.
Kyle’s avoidance of the places and people that remind him of Kimberly only enhances his depression. In not confronting the accident, Kyle is left alone with his thoughts, where he is mired in Grief and Guilt. At the beginning of his character arc, Kyle is a young man in need of counseling or some other form of help. Though it is important to honor the memory of people we have lost, Daughtry and Lippincott demonstrate that holding on to the past puts the present and future into peril. Later, they will develop Kyle’s character; he will transform, Acclimating to Change. He will learn to let go of the past and move toward the future.
By clinging to the past, Kyle risks losing the people who still exist. Sam and Kyle have been best friends for a long time; in the aftermath of the accident, Kyle ignores Sam and refuses to speak with him. This is part of Kyle’s survival method. He wants to avoid anyone who reminds him of Kimberly and sees the way Sam has changed as a result of the accident. Kyle believes it is easier to hide from people like Sam, who will talk to him about Kimberly and what life was like before. Sam doesn’t give up on Kyle, characterizing him as a loyal and mature friend. When Sam and Kyle finally reunite, Sam encourages Kyle to live for Kimberly’s memory and celebrate her spirit through embracing his own life. This outlook embodies the heart of the narrative.
However, Sam is a teenager like Kyle. Neither have the life experience to understand what moving forward looks like. Sam’s presence is important to Kyle’s character development. Sam is an ally, someone who can push Kyle to improve himself while supporting him. Sam is also a sobering reminder to Kyle that he is not the only one who suffers from Kimberly’s loss. Sam teaches him that he is not alone in his fears and hurt, and that Kyle grieving alone has some selfish aspects.
Kyle is challenged with how to think about Kimberly in his life. Kimberly broke up with Kyle seconds before her death. He can’t call her his girlfriend anymore, but he was never given the chance to mourn the end of their romance. Kyle can only think of Kimberly in the context of their relationship. This proves Kimberly’s point, posthumously, that neither Kyle nor Kimberly knew who they were. This is an important trope in the young adult fiction genre: Characters come of age and learn who they are and might become. The tragedy of the accident is that Kimberly will never have the chance to discover her identity. Daughtry and Lippincott encourage their young readers to embrace every opportunity to be independent and to learn who they are.
Another trope in young adult fiction is the importance of transitions. As one moves from their pre-teen to teen to young adult years, the world becomes increasingly more complicated. Until Kimberly’s death, Kyle was preparing for the transition into college, a new and more adult chapter in his life. Now he struggles to transition to a world without her. Kyle is also undergoing an internal transformation. Before the accident he was a positive person with friends, passions, and dreams; post-accident he is a shell. Kyle’s transition is one of grief, rather than the stressful but joyful experience of graduating from high school and moving on to college. Kyle is young; Daughtry and Lippincott foreshadow that he’ll be able to recover from his accident and rediscover his hopes and dreams.
The authors foreshadow a better future when introducing Marley, with whom Kyle shares an instant connection. Marley and Kyle are intimately acquainted with pain and understand one another in ways that others cannot. Marley is a speck of joy in Kyle’s life. She is both a distraction from his grief and someone with whom he can explore its depths. Daughtry and Lippincott hint at a possible romantic connection; Kyle feels electric when Marley is near, and he notes her physicality. Kyle feels guilty about their friendship; most likely he thinks he’s dishonoring Kimberly’s memory to move onto another girl so fast. Marley and Kyle acknowledge the possibility of a romantic relationship when agreeing to keep things platonic. This shows how Kyle is connecting with his emotions again, how he is able to have feelings for another person. His new friendship with Marley is both fraught and promising.
Kyle’s mother also foreshadows his future development and self-reclamation. Though Kyle was young when his father died and has no pain or memory of that loss, Kyle’s mother has been dealing with her beloved husband’s death for years. Still, she is a positive person who takes good care of her son and lives a fulfilling life. This suggests that Kyle will be able to recover from Kimberly’s death as well. Kyle’s mother encourages him to keep looking forward always and never back, an important piece of advice because it comes from first-hand experience. Kyle’s mother is, as a secondary character, a source of support: She keeps her hopes up for her son’s future even when he can’t.
Kyle’s recovery will be long and arduous. Kimberly literally haunts him, the spookiest experience being the mysterious ringing cellphone. Kyle is insecure in his understanding of what’s going on. He has suffered not only loss, but a traumatic brain injury. The narrative raises questions as to whether Kimberly’s presence is paranormal or part of Kyle’s trauma-induced imagination.
Symbols play an important role in these chapters. Marley gives Kyle a daisy, the symbol of hope. This represents both hope for Kyle’s individual future and for his relationship with Marley. Marley also points out the cherry blossom as the symbol for a new start. Flowers are natural to the Earth, thus implying that new beginnings are an inevitable part of the life cycle. Kimberly’s death may have been too soon and tragic, but mortality is as much a fact of life as the hopeful flowers. The charm bracelet Kyle was going to give Kimberly before her death is another important symbol. Its existence represents both Kyle’s love for Kimberly and the chaotic nature of their relationship, as he bought it for her because they were fighting. Posthumously, the bracelet represents all that is left unsaid and unresolved, unrequited feelings, and a dangerous attachment to the past.
