To be fair, Sam was not completely wrong about the friends part. Sam and Annie were, no, are best friends. Her heart has been shattered since she saw a wedding and a future with Sam, but apparently he didn't feel the same. She is trying to be cool with the "just friends" change, but she's struggling.
In Rowan, she meets an enigmatic and beautiful woman named Sophie, and the two become fast friends. Sophie is amazing because she wears black velvet and has an incredible mansion in the woods. She doesn't have a TV and she makes soaps and lotions and drinks the most amazing teas that she makes herself. But most of all, she is interested in Annie's life and wants to help her heal her broken heart by becoming stronger and enjoying a satisfying life as an incredible single woman, just as Sophie has for many years.
Unfortunately, Annie is still hung up on Sam, but that's not the only thing troubling her. She has a classroom full of jerks for students, and they regularly make bird noises at her as she tries to teach. Chirping or chicken sounds, they love them all, and Annie takes it to heart as she is a very tall and thin woman, maybe a little birdlike in appearance, with the unfortunate last name of Crane. Her only decent student is a girl named Madison who sometimes asks to join her in her classroom for lunch when her best friend is out of town. She seems interested in learning and appears to be a genuinely cool kid.
As Annie meets the townsfolk, she finds them very "small-town" friendly, although when Sophie is with her, they seem timid and deferent, maybe even a bit frightened? Sophie says she owns a lot of real estate in Rowan, so surely that must be it, but still, Annie has started to hear some strange whisperings about Sophie and she doesn't like it one bit.
Yet her friendship with Sophie continues to blossom, even to the point that Sophie gives Annie one of her pets to stay with her for company, a very large and fuzzy spider named Ralph. Annie's scared at first, but Ralph seems to be a genuinely fun little guy, complete with a big, goofy grin on his face and many laughing eyes. He helps with her loneliness, but her mind still strays to Sam often, much to Sophie's (and Ralph's) chagrin.
When she reaches out to Sam by text on Valentine's Day and he responds that he misses her, they decide to see each other once more, as he tells it, to make sure they made the right decision. But what will she tell Sophie, who is adamant that Annie move on without Sam? Decisions, decisions. Annie has a lot on her plate, but she is experiencing changes she doesn't even realize. When it all comes to a head, just who will she be left with?
Cackle is an odd book, because it is part comedy, part romance, and part horror (as there are a few genuinely scary moments in the book), but it is 100% a book about a woman finding herself and being satisfied with who she is, without the trappings of, well, anyone else. Yes, a part of her still loves Sam, and yes, she loves her new best friend Sophie, but Annie has to learn to love herself and that's the hardest part of her journey. At its heart, Cackle is a true girl power book, but not in the, "hey, I'm a feminist and I am awesome!" way. More like, "hey, I'm not perfect, but I love me anyway and that is enough." I enjoyed it thoroughly and it's a perfect Halloween season book, because of its witchy ways, but it also has a quiet underlying message that is pretty nice too.
