Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussion of mental illness.

While the Shred family does not spend an inordinate amount of time at the Running Brook Country Club, it becomes emblematic not only of the sisters’ differences—Ollie dislikes the country club for its rules and protocols, whereas Amy finds comfort in its rituals, highlighting the Sisters as Opposites and Mirror Images—but also of the Shreds’ class aspirations. They are not extremely wealthy, though they are privileged, making their way into the upper middle class by dint of Dad’s growing home design business. This motif of money and status explores the expectations surrounding socioeconomic status at a certain time and place (white, wealthy, late-20th-century circles), as well as the concomitant desire to belong.

Ollie chafes against these expectations until later in life. As a teenager, she “start[s] shopping at Goodwill and thrift shops” (24), expressly motivated by a desire to unsettle her mother, who “[cannot] understand why anyone would buy used clothes when they could afford new ones” (24). In this way, Ollie protests against her mother’s middle-class values. For Amy, in contrast, social striving becomes a way she can fit in—something that does not come easily to her.