The novel opens on 23-year-old April May as she warns the reader that the “epic tale of intrigue and mystery and adventure and near death and actual death” (1) won’t begin until a later chapter. April claims she is the most important thing that has happened to the human race. April earned her bachelor’s degree in fine arts in design and took the first job that would keep her in New York. Her parents run a successful business in Northern California providing equipment to dairy farms. She lives in her girlfriend Maya’s living room, making the distinction that they aren’t living together and are only roommates as they were in college.

The narrative shifts to April as she walks down 23rd Street in Manhattan after a long shift at the start-up she works at. When she arrives at the nearest station, her MetroCard is rejected. As she heads back to work to pick up another, she spots an exceptional sculpture. April calls it “New York awesome”—New York City artists spend years making sculptures that get local news coverage before everyone forgets it in favor of another “ABSOLUTELY PERFECT AND REMARKABLE THING” (3). The “ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of Samurai armor” (3) seems full of energy, as though it may turn to April at any moment.