56 pages • 1 hour read
Sophie CousensThis Time Next Year
Fiction | Novel | Adult | 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.
Themes
Time, Luck, and Fate
Both the novel’s structure and its plot reinforce the significance of time and its effects on individuals’ feelings about their lives and agency. Cousens uses attitudes toward time, destiny, and free will to demonstrate key character traits and underscore the role of self-perception in romance and life.
Minnie has a lifelong dread of her New Year’s Day birthday, believing the day itself brings her bad luck. Early in the novel, Minnie warns Greg, her then-boyfriend, “I did warn you about spending New Year with me” (2). Subsequently, she is accidentally trapped in a bathroom the entire night and rescued only when the party she is attending empties. This mishap validates her lifelong dread of the day. Quinn is shocked by her vehement dislike of the day, as he loves their mutual birthday. Minnie at first attributes this to his economic privilege and happy demeanor, assuming that he cannot believe in bad luck since he has never experienced any. Minnie’s family shares her belief in the power of time; after learning that Quinn was born before Minnie and will receive the prize money she hoped for, Connie Cooper tells her newborn, “Just a minute too late, hey” (26). In the narrative present, Minnie’s father obsessively restores old clocks, calling their incessant ticking “the heartbeat of the house” (26). His clock hobby implies that he, too, is preoccupied with the passage of time and the sense that the family has been cursed since Minnie’s too-late birth.
For Quinn, suffering is due not to bad luck or a specific time of the year but rather to a familial history that shapes his fate. He associates suffering and loss with specific tragedies: his mother’s miscarriage and his parents’ divorce, which did coincide with his birthday but were the result of prior setbacks, not the date itself. Quinn believes that he is trapped by his role as caretaker, telling Minnie, “I know I can’t be what you need me to be” (279). Flashbacks reveal that Quinn feels trapped by his memories of confessing his love to Polly only for her to tell him that his commitment to his mother means his partner’s needs are always neglected. On another New Year’s Eve, Quinn realizes that he needs therapy more than a relationship with Lucy, leading to hope that he will work through his trauma and find a way to be with Minnie.
As the narrative progresses, the Coopers’ understanding of time and luck shifts as they embrace personal agency in the face of an unlucky past. Minnie’s character growth is marked by her newfound ability to accept that setbacks are a part of her life rather than a symbol of her innate bad luck. She laughs off the mishap of Leila’s elaborate proposal based on a conversation her friend no longer recalls. That same day, Minnie discovers that her mother has reconnected with Tara Hamilton and developed compassion for the woman she once despised. Connie realizes that Tara’s seemingly perfect life is “like too much icing on a cake—it’s covering over a crumby base that’s cracked down the middle” (235). The new, more optimistic version of Connie inspires Minnie’s father as well, who sells one of his clocks to finance Minnie’s new business. Minnie reveals her growth at the end of the novel when she encounters setback after setback to meet Quinn and prove her love. She now understands that their meeting on their birthday was not a part of her perennial bad luck but a fundamental shift in her life for the better. Minnie and Quinn’s New Year’s Eve picnic shows that she has embraced spontaneity over the fear of bad luck, just as Quinn has accepted the emotional complexities of love amidst an ill-fated upbringing.
The Power of Family and Community Bonds
In addition to their shared birthday, Quinn and Minnie both have enduring bonds with their families and communities, which are sometimes sources of stress in their lives and impede their abilities to relate to one another. Changes in these relationships catalyze character growth and plot development, demonstrating that romance is about a central partnership but that other connections are just as key to the pursuit of lasting happiness.
For both Quinn and Minnie, their relationships with their mothers shape how they understand their pasts and plan for their futures. Minnie’s strained relationship with her mother dominates much of the early narrative. Connie is immediately critical of Minnie, castigating her haircut as a sign that Minnie’s “generation never stick[s] anything out” (94). Connie instantly blames the business failure on Minnie, adding to her daughter’s dejection rather than offering support. Flashbacks illustrate Quinn’s challenging childhood, where he spends his 11th birthday online chatting about his dashed hopes for a LEGO Star Wars set while his mother, Tara, cannot get out of bed. He tries to tell himself that she will rally and that he will be able to declare that “this wasn’t one of her bad days, just a bad morning” (128). Later, his first girlfriend, Polly, gently points out that Tara’s bad days never seem to abate enough for Quinn to have a life of his own. Quinn realizes as an adult that he avoids emotional vulnerability. He hopes that he cares for Lucy as deeply as she wants because “if this [is] love, this [is] manageable; this [is] not an earthquake waiting to destroy his foundation” (283). Quinn associates love more with Tara’s devastating grief than with the possibility of emotional renewal and support. Because of the attitudes toward their capacities for love and success that each learned from their mother, Quinn and Minnie’s relationship is initially constrained as the two struggle to be vulnerable with each other.
Minnie’s friendship with Leila and the reconciliation between Connie and Tara prove pivotal to resolving both Minnie and Quinn’s romantic plot and their deeper emotional struggles. Ian proves his worth as a partner for Leila because he recognizes that Minnie’s approval and support are essential to his plans to propose. Ian’s steadfast loyalty pushes Minnie to realize that Greg’s negativity and refusal to help her are signs that she has settled for the wrong person. Despite their falling out, Minnie turns to Leila after Quinn’s initial rejection and is relieved that Ian has not proposed, which “would have felt like the death knell for their friendship” if it had happened in her absence (218). Leila’s encouragement pushes Minnie to confess her feelings for Quinn, and though he rejects her out of fear, Minnie remains confident in her future plans, knowing Leila will always support her. This confidence is bolstered when Connie, who has become more empathetic and gentler after her time with Tara, embraces Minnie’s new business idea, telling her, “I’m sorry I wasn’t supportive enough before” (290). Connie pushes Tara to pursue independence, which helps Quinn realize that he has neglected his own well-being for too long, and he returns to therapy. Tara encourages Minnie to give Quinn time, while Leila gives Minnie similar advice to try again with Quinn at her wedding. Minnie takes this advice, leading to the reconciliation that is key to the novel’s happy ending. By predicating the couple’s romantic success on their strengthened familial and community bonds, This Time Next Year demonstrates that romantic relationships do not exist in a vacuum but are rather enmeshed in both partners’ broader interpersonal networks.
Transformation and Change
Along with This Time Next Year’s focus on the passage of time and recurring patterns, Cousens uses the calendar year to underline how both Quinn and Minnie transform themselves in their 30th year. Shifts in their relationships and self-image reflect not only the setbacks they experience but also the durability of their lasting romantic bond.
At the beginning of the narrative, Minnie's characterization is established through her belief in her inherent unluckiness, but as her self-perception and relationships evolve, she embraces a new self-image grounded in both confidence and vulnerability. Minnie begins the novel seemingly certain of her fundamental nature: an unlucky person who is especially prone to disaster around her birthday. Her commitment to viewing herself as unlucky limits her ability to change, as Leila observes, “I thought if you just had someone to believe in you, then you’d come out of your scared little shell and this butterfly would emerge” (190). Minnie recalls mishaps throughout her life and her mother’s habit of declaring, “This would never happen to a Quinn Cooper” (27). The flashback sequences establish that Minnie’s fears do have a grounding in reality: Her worst professional setback, being fired by a sexist and abusive boss, occurred on her birthday in 2010. Minnie’s new decade brings many shifts in her life, some deliberately chosen and others unwanted. Her business fails, but she also decides to end her unfulfilling relationship with her boyfriend. While feeling unmoored, she realizes that she owes Quinn an apology for judging him when he offered her business advice. She is romantically drawn to Quinn but resists the impulse, knowing she deserves better than another emotionally distant man. Her decision to pursue her old childhood hobby of swimming brings her back into contact with Quinn, discovering that he brings out “the truest reflection of who she really [is]” (215).
As Minnie’s sense of self-assurance and determination evolves, Quinn undergoes his own transformation from a pessimistic caregiver to a vulnerable romantic partner. Quinn’s fatalistic outlook serves as a coping mechanism amidst the challenges of caregiving. Quinn’s mother, with help from Connie, begins her own transformation process, pushing herself to invite Minnie and her friends into her home for tea. Minnie takes Quinn at his word, later rejecting him even after he admits that he is afraid of his own feelings and has sought therapy to make him a better partner. Minnie is fearful that another rejection would endanger the progress she has made, reflecting, “She had a new confidence, an inner fire, and she didn’t want it to go out” (304). Quinn is harsh with Minnie when she calls him on New Year’s Eve and reveals she is reluctant to go out. Minnie later appeals to the bus driver with reminders of the holiday’s role in romance, including her own, underlining that she has changed her approach to her birthday out of love for Quinn. Quinn’s ultimate willingness to accept Minnie’s quirks, visible when she finds him at her apartment, ready to spend the holiday however she chooses, reveals that he has let go of his cynicism, just as she has. Ultimately, the couple’s midnight kiss signifies a mutual release of cynicism and the completion of their respective character arcs, contributing to the novel’s exploration of change and personal transformation.
