Hush

Content Warning: This section contains mentions of a suicide attempt.

Names are a recurring motif throughout Hush and point to the theme of The Challenge of Navigating a New Identity. In the very first chapter, Toswiah alerts the reader to the change in her name (Evie) and explains how she chose it—in memory of a jump-rope game she once played with her best friend Lulu. Toswiah struggles to make sense of who she is under her new name. The name “Toswiah” connects to her personal history, as she shares it with her grandmother and great-grandmother. She also treasures it for being unique, as she hadn’t met someone with the same name until the move. The Toswiah she does meet in her new school is the opposite of her, extroverted and surrounded by friends.

Evie’s classmate Toswiah is representative of the conflict she feels over the erasure of her past and new identity. However, Evie and Toswiah warm up to each other over the course of the novel and share a moment of true connection when Evie is beginning to make peace with her new name and identity. Names are important to Cameron (Anna), as well. She originally wants to keep her own name, but when forced to change it, she picks a