Content warning: This section of the guide discusses child abuse and drug addiction.

At the novel’s beginning, Lexi, the protagonist, is 14 and a product of Southern California’s foster care system. She has lived in seven homes in the past five years, and this continuous shifting affects her significantly. The only constant in Lexi’s life is Ms. Watters, a social worker who helps and supports her while in foster care. When she moves to Washington, Kristin Hannah uses Lexi to introduce readers to the characters that she meets and the new place that she explores. Lexi understands the foster-care stigma that follows her. When she starts school, she is quiet and tries to blend in with her classmates, and she does her best to behave perfectly for her great aunt, fearful that Eva will give her up as her previous foster parents did. Once she meets Mia, however, Lexi becomes more confident, especially as her relationship with the Farraday family develops and strengthens.

Hannah traces Lexi’s development through high school using her relationship with the Farradays and time jumps that emphasize the changes in these characters. As a high school first-year student, Lexi has frizzy, waist-length black hair, blue eyes, bushy eyebrows, and crooked teeth, but she becomes conventionally beautiful by her senior year.