“You see, Detective, it felt like I’d waited my whole life to get to Stanford. Growing up outside of Boston—Newton, to be exact, if you know the area—I was one of those quiet, nerdy kids everyone ignored. I mean, the teachers knew me because I had excellent grades, although they constantly confused me with Rosa Chee. She was my friend, along with all the other quiet nerds, but to the rest of the school, to the normal kids, I was invisible.”

This first address to the detective, early in Chapter 1, establishes the narrative device of the confession and introduces an audience for Ava’s story, a detective who is requesting information. Ava’s summary of her school years hints at several important elements: her need to achieve, her wish to fit in, and her feelings of being overlooked, which reveal the prejudice she endured as she recalls how her teachers couldn’t distinguish her from another Asian girl. The passage also hints at Ava’s ambition, which will prove to be a key character trait.

“I’ll admit that at first, I was dazzled by her wealth and beauty, her extreme confidence. I suppose a part of me was still stuck in freshman year, clinging to friends like life rafts. But there was a deeper reason, too. The truth is, no one else, besides my mother, could calm Henri, and I was desperate.”

The narrative Ava weaves for the detective suggests that Winnie preyed on her at a vulnerable moment. Ava’s reference to her difficulties as a parent and her grief for her mother also introduce a theme of family and motherhood that weaves throughout the novel; motherhood adds to the burdensome expectations Ava faces. She sets herself up as a foil and parallel to Winnie, suggesting to the detective that Ava feels inferior to her friend.