46 pages • 1 hour read
Tillie ColeA Thousand Boy Kisses
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2016A 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 7-9Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary: “Lips Betrayed and Painful Truths”
Poppy performs at a recital for the first time since coming back to Blossom Grove. She sees her parents, the Kristiansens, and Alton in the audience, but she does not see Rune. She performs, losing herself in the music, and she relishes the moment of silence at the end of the piece before catching a glimpse of Rune leaving the auditorium. Poppy talks to her parents and the Kristiansens, and Alton tells Poppy that Rune ignores him.
Poppy goes to Deacon’s party with Jorie, who apologizes for talking about Rune. Poppy wears earrings with infinity symbols that Rune gave her for her 14th birthday. At the party, Poppy confesses to Jorie that she regrets cutting contact with Rune, whom she loves just as much as she did two years ago, and she says she hopes no one finds out why Poppy had to leave town. Later, Poppy finds Rune on a couch with his arm around Avery, leaning in for a kiss. Poppy flees to another room, thinking she might throw up, but Rune follows her. Rune gets close to Poppy, but Poppy tells Rune to leave her alone and hurries away.
Poppy hears Rune running behind her, and she goes to the blossom grove. Rune confronts Poppy, demanding to know why Poppy stopped calling. Poppy refuses to explain, repeating her grandmother’s mantra of “moonbeam hearts and sunshine smiles” (112). Rune and Poppy both have tears in their eyes, and Rune stops Poppy from leaving. Poppy finally admits she left town and cut contact because she is dying. Poppy has Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and she only has a few months to live. Rune runs away, and Poppy goes home. The Kristiansens are sitting with her parents, and Poppy’s mother embraces her.
Chapter 8 Summary: “Scattered Breaths and Haunted Souls”
Rune runs through the woods, clawing at the dirt and lamenting Poppy’s illness. He ultimately goes home, ignoring his parents and going to his room, where he tosses his bedframe, smashes his laptop, and screams. His mother comes in and hugs him while he cries. Rune’s father enters, but Rune yells at him, grabbing his collar and pushing him against the door. Rune says he will never forgive him.
Rune crosses the yard to Poppy’s window, finding it unlocked. He sees Poppy wake up, and he collapses in tears in her arms. Poppy laments their time apart, but she says she sees the old Rune in his eyes. Rune kisses Poppy on the cheek, and Poppy retrieves the jar of boy kisses, dusty with disuse. Rune worries that Poppy regrets having sex with him, but Poppy finds the heart marked with kiss 355, noting how special that night was. Poppy wonders if Rune kissed other girls, but Rune says he did not, adding that every day has been sad and angry since he left Poppy. They repeat their promise of “infinity” and “forever” and fall asleep. This day is the third event that defines Rune’s life.
The next morning, Poppy wakes Rune up to see the sunrise. She says she thought she would not live to see Rune again, but Rune’s return is like a new life. Poppy tries to live every day to the fullest, and she laments that more people do not do so. They go to the blossom grove to watch the sunrise, and Poppy criticizes Rune for not watching any sunrises in Norway. Before parting ways, Rune says he does not think he can become the old Rune again but that he wants to be with Poppy. He offers to start a new adventure with Poppy, and she shakes his hand, repeating her words from their meeting when they were five years old. Rune says he will pick Poppy up at 6:00 pm for a date.
Chapter 9 Summary: “First Dates and Dimpled Smiles”
Ida and Savannah watch Poppy get ready for her date with Rune, and they tell Poppy how jealous the other girls at school will be. They hear the doorbell, and Poppy’s father awkwardly answers the door. Poppy assures her father that she is safe going on a date with Rune, and Rune and Poppy get in Rune’s family’s car. Rune is tense, but he softens when Poppy sings a love song that comes on the radio. They hold hands tightly, and Poppy can tell Rune does not want to let go. Poppy imagines herself and Rune in 10 years but then fights the sadness of realizing she will not be alive in 10 years. Rune tells Poppy he missed her as they drive to Tony’s Shack.
Mamaw used to take Rune and Poppy to the Shack for crawfish boils, and Poppy has not been back since Rune left. Rune insists on a table overlooking the creek nearby, and he pulls Poppy’s chair next to his. Poppy jokes that Rune should get a motorcycle to fit his black leather aesthetic, and they reminisce about Mamaw. Poppy says she will see Mamaw again when she goes “home,” meaning heaven. Rune leaves the table to smoke a cigarette and brood, telling Poppy her illness is unfair. Poppy says it would be unfair if they did not get these additional moments together. She says it is fate that she returned to Blossom Grove to live out her last months just as Rune also returned.
Next, Rune takes Poppy to the Dixon Theater, where he has arranged for them to sit in on the Savannah Chamber Orchestra rehearsals. The orchestra cellist plays “The Swan” from Carnival of the Animals, which is Poppy’s favorite piece. Poppy tells Rune she will watch over him while he studies photography at Tisch. However, Rune no longer takes pictures because he lost his passion when he moved away from Poppy. Rune drives Poppy home, walking her to her bedroom window. They kiss passionately, and Poppy labels it kiss 357. Poppy goes inside, and Rune appears at her bedroom window an hour later. He comes in, takes off his shirt, and gets in bed. Poppy is aroused by Rune’s bare chest, and she feels safe in his arms.
Chapters 7-9 Analysis
Rune’s anger in the immediate aftermath of his return to Georgia introduces an element of conflict to his relationship with Poppy and reflects The Intensity of Young Love. Because Rune does not know why Poppy cut contact, he assumes she did it to hurt him. Poppy, like Rune, fears what her former partner thinks of her, but her solution is avoidance—staying away from Rune to avoid hurting him further. When Jorie asks if Poppy still loves Rune, she thinks, “[M]y lack of response [is] as loud as a scream. I [do]. I still [love] him” (99), revealing Poppy’s internal conflict regarding her future with Rune. Meanwhile, Rune takes out his anger at Poppy by pretending to kiss Avery, later saying, “I knew you were near. I was pissed. I wanted to hurt you like you hurt me” (134). Both responses are in line with the intense romance developed earlier in the novel, as Rune and Poppy are confused and upset by their forced separation. Moreover, their shared anxieties underscore that their connection remains intact; they may act on their feelings differently, but the underlying feelings that motivate each character are the same.
Poppy and Rune’s responses to Poppy’s diagnosis also differ, and their contrasting reactions develop the theme of Emotional Resilience in the Face of Loss and Mortality. Before telling Rune about her illness, Poppy tells him, “I need moonbeam hearts and sunshine smiles […] It’s what’s keeping me going. I won’t stop believing in a beautiful world. I won’t let it break me” (111). Though Poppy does not directly address her fears or sadness, she uses her Mamaw’s words to keep from falling into despair. Poppy sees her illness as a kind of test, and her comment that she will not “let it break” her reveals that her optimism is a choice—and one that makes her resilient against grief. Furthermore, her insistence on beauty and happiness echoes the novel’s message about living life to the fullest, reminding Poppy of all that she can still enjoy while she is alive.
Rune, on the other hand, has an explosive reaction to Poppy’s disease, running through the woods, crying, yelling, and even harming himself in his grief: “Falling forward, crippled by the pain in my stomach, I roared into the darkness of the empty park. My hands scratched the hard earth beneath my palms, twigs slicing at my fingers, ripping up my nails” (116). Rune is beginning a process of working through his emotions, which will continue as Poppy’s illness progresses. That he has not yet done so is evident from the way Poppy’s revelation intensifies Rune’s conflict with his father; in his anger, Rune repeats his vow of hating Erik forever. Though Rune is correct that Erik took away two years that Rune could have spent with Poppy, he does not yet see that distancing himself from others will not help Poppy or counteract his sadness about her illness.
The Fleeting Nature of Life and the Importance of Memory becomes a dominant theme in this section as Rune and Poppy realize the limited time they have left. They revisit Tony’s Shack, where Mamaw used to take them for seafood, imbuing their renewed relationship with both the memory of their childhood and the pain of Mamaw’s death. Music develops as a representation of the fleeting nature of life and beauty, much as cherry blossoms do in other areas of the novel. Rune takes Poppy to see an orchestra perform her favorite piece of music—one that is itself popularly associated with mortality thanks to the famous ballet (The Dying Swan) choreographed to accompany it. Poppy underscores the music’s significance when she remarks, “This moment, given to me by you, I will remember always. I will take it with me to…wherever I go” (172). Poppy’s implication is that her memories with Rune will last into the afterlife, which she calls “home,” but her words also indicate how important even the briefest moments they share are for them both. Rune will need to hold on to these memories after Poppy is dead, and his intention is to enrich those memories with wonderful shared experiences.
