Jeremey Samson is a depressed and anxious high school graduate living in Ames, Iowa with parents who think he's a faker. Emmet Washington is an autistic college student who just moved into Jeremey's neighborhood with his parents. Emmet is instantly attracted to Jeremey and starts trying to get to know him, and before long the two fall in love.
The books in the series:
- Carry the Ocean (2015)
- Shelter the Sea (2017)
The Roosevelt contains examples of:
- all lowercase letters: When Jeremey's depression is severe, he doesn't have the energy to use capital letters or punctuation in his texts to Emmet. The two of them come up with a series of abbreviations so Jeremey can text with minimal effort.
- Character Tics:
- Emmet usually stands with his hands bent in front of him. He also rocks, flaps, and hums, especially during emotional moments.
- Jeremey fidgets with his fingers when he's nervous. Emmet says that it's like a smaller version of his flaps.
- Commonality Connection: Emmet immediately understands Jeremey's sensitivity and his anxiety over what to do in social situations.
- Condescending Compassion: David Loris, a resident at the assisted living facility The Roosevelt who was partially paralyzed in a car crash a few years ago, hates being pitied and treated like a baby by other people, especially the staff. Emmet takes an instant dislike to David, which David finds refreshing, because at least Emmet doesn't feel sorry for him and is reacting to his personality rather than his body.
- Contemplation Location:
- Emmet's closet at The Roosevelt is his safe space, with pillows and blankets and a Lycra sensory sack. He goes there whenever he needs to focus and think.
- His employers, Workiva, install a ball pit on his advice. He and some of his coworkers go there to think about ideas.
- Cut Himself Shaving: After Emmet punches David, David feels like he had it coming, so he tells people the mark on his forehead is from driving his wheelchair into a door frame so Emmet won't get in trouble.
- Dedication:
- Carry the Ocean: "for all who navigate the waters of life's superpowers, may you ever stay afloat"
- Shelter the Sea: "for those lost at sea, may you soon dance upon the waves"
- Does Not Drive:
- Emmet has been told that he will never be able to drive. He isn't sure why, because his aunt Althea, who is also autistic, can drive.
- Jeremey has his driver's license, but driving makes him nervous, a problem that's gotten worse over time. He thinks he might be able to drive on a quiet street in a small town, but not in a city like Ames.
- Eyes Always Averted: Emmet finds looking directly at people overwhelming, but he can see very well through his peripheral vision. One perk of this is that he can check out Jeremey without anyone noticing.
- Flashmob: Emmet, Jeremey, and David agree to start dancing to "Happy" in Target, wearing Blues Brothers costumes, while the social worker Sally and Emmet's dad Douglass film them. About ten strangers join them in a dance line through the store.
- Flipping the Bird: David tells Emmet to hit him again when he's being an asshole. Emmet doesn't want to, and suggests that they come up with a gesture instead. David points out that there's a perfectly good gesture to tell people they're being assholes, and Emmet agrees to flip him off when necessary.
- Gayngst: Jeremey's mom, Gabrielle, walks in on Jeremey and Emmet right after their First Kiss. She screams in horror, accuses Emmet of taking advantage of Jeremey, then accuses Jeremey of taking advantage of a retarded boy, and bans the two of them from seeing each other. She becomes somewhat more accepting after his suicide attempt, but she still wants him to get a "normal" boyfriend, rather than Emmet.
- Gym Class Hell: When Jeremey was in seventh grade, bullies in the locker room threatened to shove him into the hallway naked so the girls could laugh at him too. After that, he started getting stomachaches every time he had PE, and made himself vomit so the nurse would believe him. Eventually they made him go back, so he hid in the bathroom until everyone else was out.
- Handshake Refusal: David's aide Jimmy extends his hand to Stuart, one of the autistic residents of The Roosevelt. Stuart Hates Being Touched, so he hums and turns to face the wall.
- Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: Emmet and his family use ASL when speech is too hard for him. He taught it to Jeremey, and the two use it in Shelter the Sea to have private conversations about The Roosevelt's money problems.
- Homeschooled Kids: Emmet used to go to a private school where the academics were good, but the other kids were not. The place was such a bad fit for him that he stopped talking between the ages of nine and thirteen. His parents pulled him out and homeschooled him, after which he improved.
- How Many Fingers?: Emmet shows off his peripheral vision by correctly counting Jeremey's fingers without looking directly at them.
- Interrupted Suicide: After days of being prevented from seeing Emmet, Jeremey becomes convinced Emmet never liked him and is only texting him out of pity. He decides to commit suicide via car exhaust. He texts Emmet goodbye, then smashes his phone so Emmet won't be able to text back. Emmet shows the texts to his mom Marietta, who calls 911. The paramedics arrive just as Jeremey is losing consciousness.
- Mess of Woe: Jeremey's room is a disaster zone, despite his efforts to clean it. Like Emmet, Jeremey feels that objects have feelings, so seeing his room in such bad shape only makes him more depressed, but he can't help it. Emmet helps him clean his room, which takes two weeks.
- My Nayme Is: Emmet loves that Jeremey spells his name with an extra E, which makes him seem even more special.
- No Medication for Me: Inverted. Jeremey wants to be medicated, but his mom told the doctor he didn't know what he was talking about and refuses to let Jeremey get any help. After his suicide attempt, he finally gets medicated, although it takes a while to find a drug that doesn't have any unpleasant side effects.
- Photographic Memory: Emmet compares his brain to a camera. He remembers almost everything he sees, especially numbers. He can memorize fifty lines of code in one read-through, and he's always helping his mom find things because he can remember where she set them down last.
- Rail Enthusiast: Emmet is delighted that his family's new home is near a train track, which runs between his and Jeremey's backyards. Every time a train goes by, he counts the cars and engines and tries to find patterns in the way they're arranged. When he and Jeremey move into The Roosevelt, he makes sure to get a room facing the tracks.
- Saving the Orphanage: In Shelter the Sea, changes to state laws have put The Roosevelt in financial trouble. Emmet persuades Workiva to start a program to give The Roosevelt's residents part-time jobs to help pay for their room and board. Emmet, Jeremey, David, and Darren also go to the Ames City Council for backing, where Emmet discovers and corrects the misleading math used by a manipulative councilman who wants to cut funding. The four also go on a speaking tour, along with Jeremey's new service dog Mai, to fight a new bill that would award more contracts to private companies and make it harder for places like The Roosevelt to exist. The bill passes, but the tour, and especially the dance routine the protagonists do to "Try Everything" while dressed as the Blues Brothers, results in so much publicity, including a celebrity endorsement from Dan Aykroyd, that they raise all the money they need and more, enough to fund a Roosevelt Foundation to open similar facilities across Iowa.
- Sensory Overload: Emmet finds everything extra loud, bright, and distracting. A seam on his socks feels like his brain is being scraped with a trowel, a fan blowing on him feels like crawling ants, and flashing lights and strong smells make him feel sick.
- Signature Scent: Emmet has synesthesia. To him, Jeremey's smell is bluish green with brown and white flecks and bits of yellow, like an ocean wave.
- Sleepy Depressive: Jeremey goes to bed at about ten PM but often sleeps until noon. Some days he doesn't get up at all.
- Speaks in Shout-Outs: When Emmet was little, he memorized The Blues Brothers and for a few years communicated almost entirely in Blues Brothers quotes.
- The Speechless: Darren Kennedy, an autistic guy Jeremey knows from his time in the group home Icarus House, is almost entirely nonverbal. At most, he can whisper along to videos a little. He programmed his own communication app because the ones already available were too expensive for his family, and he speaks DSL - Darren Sign Language - a form of ASL heavily modified to be easier for him, which only a few other people understand.
- Tantrum Throwing: Jeremey starts working as a caretaker for David, despite Emmet's dislike of him. David gets in an argument with Emmet and threatens to steal Jeremey from him. He means it as a joke, but Emmet takes it seriously. Realizing David is a much better catch than he is, Emmet punches David in the face, then runs to his room, throws his foam hammer at his bookshelf, throws his bedsheets around, and smashes his pillow against the doorknob until it breaks open.
- Their First Time: Emmet and Jeremey move into The Roosevelt and have sex as soon as their parents are gone.
- Title Drop:
- In the first book, Jeremey texts Emmet, "sometimes I feel like is carrying a bucket of water but I'm trying to carry an ocean. its very hard. sometimes i would rather not carry my ocean, even if it meant I couldn't be alive."
- In the second book, Jeremey compares The Roosevelt Project to carrying everyone else's oceans. Emmet says, "We aren't carrying the oceans. We're helping them find places to be to carry them themselves more easily." Jeremey says, "We're trying to shelter the sea, then."
- Troubled Fetal Position: Jeremey and Emmet have simultaneous breakdowns when Gabrielle catches them together. Jeremey curls up crying on the floor.
- Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Jeremey's mom doesn't accept that he's mentally ill. She's always dragging him to public places that overwhelm him, and when he has a breakdown, she yells at him for embarrassing her. And that's before she finds out he's gay.
- Your Makeup Is Running: When Gabrielle confesses to Jeremey that she's depressed too, her mascara runs down her cheeks. When she wipes it with a tissue, it makes streaks.
