Ashley “Ash” Bowman is the novel’s protagonist and first-person narrator. He is a white heterosexual American teenager who inadvertently learns to shift between different versions of the universe. As a result, in some parts of the story, Ash finds himself, in different realities, to be a gay young man and a young woman; in each case, these new identities affect his relationships and character growth.

Ash has a younger brother, Hunter. Though they do not get along well at first, in the following universes, the two brothers are much closer. Experiencing these relationships prompts Ash to decide to work on his relationship with Hunter when he gets back to his original world. As for the boys’ parents, their dad initially sells auto parts while their mom works as a nutritionist. In later universes, however, their dad has a successful football career and, although their family is much wealthier, the Bowman parents are less supportive and more absent from their sons’ lives. Ash, for instance, learns that he has been dealing drugs from his father’s store; driven by his original moral code, he now vows to stop.

Ash plays on his high school football team, which is originally called the Tibbetsville Tsunamis before being renamed to the Blue Demons, then the Gray Demons, in other universes.