Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses suicide, in addition to strong psychological manipulation.

Jessica Farris is the novel’s protagonist and one of its narrators. In contrast with Dr. Shields, Jessica’s narrative style is more casual and emotional. In the story’s exposition, Jessica introduces The Nature of Morality as a key theme and urges the reader not to judge her without knowing the full story. During her initial session, Jessica admits to questionable but benign moral choices: She has slept with married men, lies to get into the study, and keeps a big secret from her parents about Becky’s accident. As a freelance makeup artist in New York, Jessica is also driven by her need for money, both to survive herself and to help her family. Jessica also harbors guilt for not telling her parents that she locked Becky in her room: “I didn’t know the omission would continue to swell and gain in strength with every passing year” (87). Jessica is lured into Dr. Shields’s study at the prospect of large payouts and finds herself

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