“Quickly, she checked her reflection in the glass inset in the door. She needed to feel powerful, true to herself, which translated into a ‘70s halter dress, ‘60s gold platforms, and ‘80s dolphin hoops, all thrifted from her favorite consignment shops.”

Ricki’s personal style is a mixture of styles throughout the 20th-century decades. This eccentric aesthetic matches that of Ezra, who’s lived through each of these decades and adapted features of them to fit his favorite parts into his life and his personality. This intersection of interest and appreciation for various eras of culture and history provides a solid foundation for their later romantic compatibility.

“When it came to the Wilde Funeral Homes businesses, all Ricki ever cared about was one thing: the flowers. The bouquets, the branches, the petals. The fantastical sprays. Growing up, her one respite from the rigidity of the Wildes—and the chilly business of dying—was the wooded garden a mile or so beyond their estate.”

Williams is known for infusing humor into the melancholy. This passage offers a salient example of such irony. Although Ricki intends to flee the unsavory family business of death by opening up a shop dedicated to the propagation and curation of living things, she is soon to be involved in an inescapable death curse.

“Had her family been right about her all along? They always expected her to flail, to fail. But despite them, Ricki had never felt like a loser. She simply felt misplaced. Like a duck raised by squirrels. She’d always suspected that given the chance to do what she did best, she’d succeed.”

Ricki feels like an outcast in her family, underestimated and underappreciated by her parents and sisters, who are embarrassed of the woman she truly is. Ricki will need to learn to accept herself and stop limiting herself as a way of seeking their approval.