Twelve-year-old Lola is a normal girl on the brink of the natural maturation of adolescence. “Wildwood” is her coming-of-age story. Lola is tall for her age with straight hair, dark skin, and a figure that is already getting attention. She tells her younger self early on through second-person narration, “A behind that the boys haven’t been able to stop talking about since fifth grade […] You have only the slightest hint of breasts” (Paragraph 4). Lola is an avid reader and longs for places far away, or at least not New Jersey. Lola is tired of being the immigrant Dominican girl constantly under her mother’s thumb without the nurturing she is desperate for. She has recurring strong feelings about what lies ahead for her, described as “Bright lights [that] zoom through you like photon torpedoes, like comets” (Paragraph 7). These premonitions of an eminent change signal something significant in her life is about to happen.

Lola has more a significant number of chores in the house because her father abandoned the family, and her mother works outside the home, sometimes more than one job. Still, Lola manages the house and performs well in school.