Casey Han is the protagonist of the novel; the action of the main plot is driven by her search to find a fulfilling career and a meaningful relationship. The plot follows Casey for a period of four years, from age 22 to age 26. Casey is a Korean American woman who grows up in a working-class family; she subsequently studies at Princeton and then works in environments where she is surrounded by wealthy people. Casey has a strong craving for wealth and luxury, and she often finds this desire difficult to reconcile with her actual financial circumstances: “[T]hough her debts terrorized her, the desire for more […] only grew stronger” (160). Casey is torn not only between different economic realities but also between different cultural identities. She is sometimes frustrated by the values that her Korean parents espouse, but she is also unable to completely abandon these values in order to fully embrace what she perceives as a more American and individualistic mindset.

Casey is not conventionally beautiful, and she sometimes unfavorably compares herself with women like Tina and Ella, who better embody traditional standards of beauty for a Korean woman. Nonetheless, Casey is preoccupied with her appearance and strives to work with what she does have: “[S]he did not believe she was pretty but felt she had something—some sort of workable sex appeal” (3).