The novel’s protagonist is a 17-year-old young woman whose adoptive name is Olivia Reinhart. She was born Ariel Benson, daughter of Terry and Naomi, who were in their late teens when Ariel was conceived. When Ariel was three, she lost both her mother and father to a murderer. She spent the next four years living with her grandmother, who then unexpectedly died of a heart attack. After this, Ariel spends about a decade in foster care—most of it as Olivia—before emancipating herself and living on her own.

At the beginning of the novel, Ariel’s world is small and isolated. The state’s refusal to allow her paternal family to adopt her after her maternal grandmother’s death alienated Olivia from a supportive network of family and from her own sense of self and history. Olivia is significantly marked by trauma—she has experienced a wide variety of traumatic experiences that have left her with a feeling of isolation. It seems that Olivia’s life is much more about surviving than it is about thriving. She has few possessions, no apparent hobbies or activities, no friends worth mentioning, and no family. The degree to which she is cut off from the rest of the world becomes evident when she moves to a different state spontaneously with no calls to make other than to her former manager for a recommendation.