As a child, Dana Lynn is self-aware if physically awkward. She loves science and constantly works towards a career in this field. Despite being beautiful and smart, Dana Lynn spends most of her life unhappy. From the moment her father tells her she is his secret, she sees herself as second-rate. This is compounded by the fact that she spends most of her life living in the shadow of her father’s other daughter, Chaurisse. No matter how hard she works for something, if Chaurisse also wants to participate, Dana Lynn must step aside. She is a self-described “bitter woman at age fourteen” (42).

Eventually, Dana Lynn is no longer satisfied with her hand-me-down life and starts openly pursuing Chaurisse. From Chaurisse’s standpoint, Dana Lynn is beautiful, wild, and sad. Her emotional relationship with the known bad boy Marcus McCready is Chaurisse’s first sign that Dana Lynn is more desperate than diva. When Dana Lynn is finally exposed as Chaurisse’s half-sister, her fear and desperate attempts to be loved rise to the surface. She is abandoned by the father whose love she worked so hard for, leaving her wary of ever repeating her parents’ mistakes with her own children.