87 pages • 2 hours read
David ArnoldMosquitoland
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Part 3
Part 3: “Nashville, Tennessee (526 Miles to Go)”
Chapter 12 Summary: “Anomalies”
Mim describes herself as an anomaly because she enjoys contradictory things—for example, she hates country music but loves Elvis and Johnny Cash, two of her mom’s favorites. She decides not to turn in Poncho Man because she’s worried that by doing so she won’t make it to her mom in Cleveland. She feels guilty about her decision, though, because now he’s free to potentially hurt someone else.
In a letter to Isabel, Mim recalls Reggie, a homeless man whom her mom had a fondness for. She frequently gave him money. One day, Mim’s dad was in the car, too. When Eve stopped to give Reggie money, Mim’s dad was disapproving of the gesture.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Everything Sounds Better on Vinyl”
Mim wanders around Nashville for the remainder of their pit-stop break. Her favorite shop is the record store because her mom instilled in her a love of vinyl.
Mim writes to Isabel to tell her about one of her favorite memories of her mom. She used to wake up Mim every morning by saying, “Have a vision, Mary, unclouded by fear” (100). The saying was an old Cherokee proverb. Mim’s ancestry is a small percentage Cherokee, but she used to lie about being mostly Cherokee because she was so proud of her heritage.
Getting back onto the bus and looking around, Mim notices that the boy sitting in seat 17C is handsome. She gets back to her seat only to see the Talking Heads album she wanted from the record store sitting in her spot. She immediately feels sick because she knows it came from Poncho Man, and he must have been following her. She sees him, the “perverted-troll-of-a-loafer-strutting-poncho-wearing-motherfucker” looking at her from his seat (103). She breaks the album and decides that she must get away from him: At the next stop, she’s going to leave and attempt to hitchhike. She daydreams about the boy sitting in 17C in the meantime.
Part 3 Analysis
In these chapters, Mim continues to explore her identity. In Chapter 12, she reveals she considers herself an anomaly because she loves contradictory things. While she lists the physically contradictory things that she loves as proof of being an anomaly, like loving the ocean but hating lakes, the list is symbolic of how she feels like an emotional anomaly. She loves her dad but hates what he’s done. She considers herself to be brave, but when Poncho Man corners her in the bathroom, she feels small. She feels like an anomaly because she isn’t quite sure who she is yet.
Mim’s search for an identity is also demonstrated when she recalls lying about being Cherokee at school. Her mom is part Cherokee, but Mim lied to the school by identifying herself as nearly full Cherokee. Although part of her reason for lying was because she was proud of her heritage, the main reason is that she wanted to more closely identify with her mom, the person she looked up to most in the world.
In Chapter 13, Mim makes the decision to leave the Greyhound because she can’t stand being in the same space as Poncho Man, especially since he seems to be stalking her. She feels confident in her decision but regrets to leave behind the attractive guy sitting in 17C, who will later be identified as Beck Van Buren. Mim feels an indescribable yet immediate connection to him, and this feeling demonstrates her longing to relate to another person outside of her own head.
