Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses drug misuse, child abuse and neglect, and stigmatizing tropes that connect mental health conditions to criminal behavior, which Ward D portrays.

Amy Brenner is the protagonist and first-person narrator of Ward D. She is a third-year medical student doing her psychiatry rotation. When she was 16, she experienced a traumatic situation that shaped her current opinion on psychiatry and caused her to fear Ward D. At the beginning of the novel, Amy is presented as a diligent, intelligent woman who never questions authority, a respectful student and daughter. She does her best to behave, which seems rooted in her childhood desire to please everyone and find success. However, there are cracks in her perfect persona as seen in her anger toward her ex-boyfriend, Cameron Berger—who broke up with her in order to ensure his own success.

When Amy reunites with a former friend, Jade Carpenter, in Ward D, she is unsettled. She is reminded of Jade’s penchant for violence, as she tortured their math teacher, Mr. Riordan, when they were 16, as well as her own sightings of a young girl who pushed her to shoplift and cheat. These memories contrast Amy’s perfect persona in the present with that of her confusing, frightening past.