User:00maddie00/sandbox

Dress Codes for Small Towns is a young adult novel written by Courtney Stevens, published in 2017. The story follows Billie McCaffrey and her group of friends, the Hexagon. The novel is a story of self discovery and deals with the difficulties of teenage identity. The novel's focus is mainly on their friendships and them developing together. The novel is set in a small town, Otters Holt, Kentucky. In Billie's town she struggles with her identity and how she fits into the town's "dress code".

Plot
The novel begins with the hexagon(Billie's friend group) messing around in a youth center. When the hexagon gets together they do mildly dangerous things that often get them in trouble. This time they decide to put a sock in a cup of water in the microwave. The sock lights on fire and someone takes it out of the microwave and things escalate and they end up outside while the firemen end up putting it out. When outside they hear of a town member's death, Tyler Vilmer nicknamed Big T. Big T is the grandfather of two of the members in the group, Davey and Mash. Big T funds and runs the annual Harvest Festival.

The main conflict in the novel is the Harvest Festival. Without Big T this years Harvest Festival may be the last. The hexagon plan to save the Harvest Festival. Their plan is to make the old elementary school look nice and have a kickball game there to fund future harvest festivals. They have 5 weeks to complete their plan.

The ballot for the corn dolly is announced and miraculously Billie is one of the candidates. Her father is proud of her even though they have a conflicting relationship. Her father thinks it will be good after all the ruckus she has caused. Her father is worried about his job as the minister. He believes that if Billie wins it will make him look good and let him keep his job. During the Harvest Festival a Corn dolly is handed out to one special lady and it is never a teenager. The reader finds out that Woods, Janie Lee, and Davey go to the Harvest Festival committee and recommend Billie as a candidate. They do it in a way that will make it hard for the committee to say no. In a way they made it so that Billie became a candidate without her knowledge and her willingness. Billie finds out about this later in the novel.

Billie decides to work on Davey and hers costume for LaserCon costume competition the annual event that Davey regularly takes part in and wins. They go to LaserCon together two weeks after they start building the costumes and they win $1000 and they eventually donate it to the Harvest Festival fund.

The next day is Harvest Festival fundraiser, KickFall. KickFall goes extremely well and they raise a total of $3210 including the money they raised from LaserCon. While the hexagon was completing the plan for their fundraiser, they added in a bet. If they made $2000 then they would walk Vilmer's Beam. Everything goes smoothly at first but Billie finds out how her friends made her a candidate for the corn dolly. She starts to stress then she falls and Davey tries to hold onto her. They both fall but someone catches Billie but Davey falls and hurts his arm. They all go to the hospital.

The winner for the corn dolly is announced and it's Mrs. Tawny Jacobs but she knows that Billie's friends were at the hospital during the voting time. The amount of votes separating them was four. Five people did not have the chance to vote because they were at the hospital. Mrs. Tawny hands Billie the Corn Dolly and Billie wins. The winner must choose a dance partner and Billie chooses Janie Lee. She does this for everyone like her and she does it because Billie wants to normalize it. In their town Billie breaks the "dress code".

Self Discovery
Throughout the entire novel Billie struggles with who she is. Everyone tells her she dresses too manly and not feminine enough. She has always been called one of the guys. This theme is present when Woods puts her the board on the male side while they decide who they are going to take to the Sadie Hawkins Dance. This makes her incredibly mad. She goes to school the next day as dressed up as possible. She wears a dress and is everything she is not. All her classmates make silly comments. She struggles with her identity but she knows who she is in a way. On that day she feels as if she is wearing a costume. She never identifies with labels. She is just Billie. She also questions her sexuality when she realizes she is attracted to one of her best friends, Janie Lee.