One of the novel’s three protagonists, Sadie Green is a beautiful, brilliant game designer and a guest lecturer at MIT by the end of the narrative. Sadie is introduced in the novel as a bright 11-year-old who loves her sick sister Alice, words, and video games like The Oregon Trail. Sadie’s patience with Alice—whom chemotherapy made irritable—immediately establishes her as an empathetic, self-aware person. Her subsequent contact with Sam and the fondness with which she notes his “cartoonishly round head” (15) underline her great capacity for love. Yet, Sadie is hardly cloying or oversentimental since she has a keen sense of humor and even keener intelligence. As Sadie grows up and chooses to study tech, she encounters the pressures of trying to break through in a male-dominated profession. This makes her develop a defensive exterior and the habit of keeping to herself. She also gets into a destructive relationship with her professor, Dov, which leads her into depression. As a result, Sadie does not confide her deepest feelings to anyone, even her closest friend, Sam.

Sadie’s lack of self-esteem at the beginning of the text is symptomatic of being a bright, creative woman in a sexist environment.