Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses death by suicide, sexual violence, trauma, self-harm, misogyny, gender essentialism, and cult activity.

Shay Evans, whose name is Shay Deroy for most of the novel, is the protagonist of the work. Shay is a writer who formerly worked for a publication called The Slice, writing what she regarded as low-level feminist journalism. The novel tracks Shay’s life, revealing portions of her childhood and early adulthood through interviews with Jamie Knight. Shay’s childhood experiences shaped her sense of herself as a sexual being, with Shay expressing an understanding of herself as a spectacle to men. Participating in pageants, Shay realized her desire for male attention, conflating the ways in which men objectify her with a kind of love. Being sexually assaulted by a popular classmate, Anderson Thomas, led her to reframe her perception of men’s behaviors, reevaluating her mother’s abuse at Mr. Trevors’s hands, and resulting in her decision to commit arson and attend Whitney College. At Whitney, Shay tried to protect Laurel, and, later, Clem, but she was unable to help them as she struggled with her own conflicting feelings for Don.

After leaving Don, Shay settles into a marriage with Cal, which she acknowledges resembles her relationship with Don in some ways, as Cal has the money and influence to protect her.