48 pages • 1 hour read
Sarah AdamsPractice Makes Perfect
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Audrey Hepburn Movies
Audrey Hepburn films symbolize the looming love stories of the female love interests throughout the series. In When in Rome, Amelia’s plotline is driven by her obsession with Audrey Hepburn. Taking inspiration from Roman Holiday, Amelia comes to Rome, Kentucky (instead of Rome, Italy), and falls in love with Noah.
In Practice Makes Perfect, Annie’s personal favorite Audrey Hepburn movie is Funny Face because she relates to Jo, a “plain Jane” bookseller who falls in love with a famous fashion magazine photographer named Dick Avery, who “sees something in her that isn’t plain or quiet at all” (33). Jo is taken to Paris and brought out of her shell by Dick, who teaches her to model. The film represents the kind of adventurous, exciting love that Amelia desires. Annie is seen as sweet and innocent by everyone around her, which to her means boring. She struggles to date because of her fear of putting herself out there. She yearns for her own Dick Avery, who can “swoop in and teach [her] how to be the Quality woman everyone wants to date” (33). This wish comes true when Will becomes her dating coach, but instead of transforming Annie into someone she’s not, he coaxes her best qualities into the spotlight.
Funny Face’s Dick and Jo represent an age-gap romance with a happily ever after. While Annie and Will don’t have an age gap, their differences are evidenced in the way they’re perceived. Annie’s personality and her reputation as the youngest Walker sibling cause her to be seen as the “baby” of the family to her friends and siblings. Her lack of dating experience and virginity further build upon this perception based on sexist stereotypes. In contrast, Will is a large, muscular, tattooed bodyguard with years of experience hooking up with women and taking them on dates around the world. His natural charm and simultaneously intimidating stature cause others to take him more seriously and adopt a protective stance when confronting his relationship with Annie. Throughout Practice Makes Perfect, Annie references Audrey Hepburn films, establishing their importance in framing her own life. She identifies with the characters and uses them as markers of her own feelings and success.
Flowers
Flowers symbolize love, peace, and joy, a connotation that applies to Practice Makes Perfect. Annie’s first life goal was to run a flower shop like her late mother always dreamed of doing herself. Annie believes this is key to her happiness because she, too, has a love for flowers. She believes that “heaven will undeniably be made up of flowers” because they boost her mood like nothing else can (52). Yet, recently, Annie has come to realize that despite the love, peace, and joy her career has given her, “the nagging something-is-missing feeling still pesters [her]” (4). Annie struggles with feeling like she has betrayed the memory of her mother after realizing that the flower shop isn’t enough for her. With this realization in mind, Annie focuses on pursuing love, marriage, and a family, intent on emulating her parents’ amazing relationship, which “exuded joy and peace” (52).
Will has flowers tattooed on the top of his hand, up his arm, and over his chest. The tattoos evidence Will’s connection to the magnolia tree in the backyard of his childhood home—a safe haven he’d seek out to escape his parents. The flowers represent moments of peace in his life, especially during a period where love and joy were lacking. His floral tattoos are often admired by Annie, further connecting the two with each other, especially because Annie’s favorite flowers are magnolias. This serendipitous connection through Annie’s passion for flowers and their emotional significance to Will enforces their budding romance and hints at the ways in which they’ll find the love, peace, and joy they’re missing in each other.
Pirate Romance Novels
Pirate romance novels symbolize Annie’s attraction to Will and the secret desires hidden deep in her heart. The steamy novels counteract her “Angel Annie” reputation, suggesting Annie’s repressed desire for adventure, sexual and otherwise. Eventually, Annie realizes that while she’s always wanted nice, soft, and stable in relationships, she also wants “dangerous, untethered, and demanding” (174), all qualities that are found in Will.
Will’s career takes him on adventures all over the world, not unlike a seafaring pirate sailing from coast to coast. Will doesn’t commit to relationships and never stays in one place for too long. He’s untethered, without an anchor, and considers it an enjoyable freedom. From their first on-page interaction, Annie sees Will as “not a street fighter” but “a roguish, wild fiend. A pirate” (12). Annie’s descriptions of Will using pirate-connotated language foreshadow her attraction to Will. Just as she falls for these sort of men in her romance novels, Annie knows she’ll do the same for Will. Will has “pirate eyes with the dangerous black rim around his irises” and a “rebellious wave of hair that flops down above his brow every time he rakes his hand through it” (102). He also used to wear an earring, a common stereotype among fictional pirates. The pirate imagery continues in Annie’s daydreams of being intimate with Will, imagining pistons in his belt and a promiscuous rendezvous beneath a ship deck. When they kiss, it “explodes like a cannon […] hot and frantic” (189). Just as the series’ plots are influenced by specific Aubrey Hepburn movies, Annie’s love story is influenced by a combination of Funny Face and her favorite novels.
