Charleigh Andersen is a primary character and one of the narrators. She is a wealthy 41-year-old woman who lives with her husband, Alexander, and daughter Nellie. Due to her husband’s wealth, Charleigh does not work and focuses her time and attention on maintaining the family’s image and social standing within the town. She regularly hosts parties and social events and is tapped into town gossip and news.

Charleigh is beautiful, and her physical beauty has enabled her social climbing. Charleigh grew up in a poor family, with parents who struggled with substance use and emotionally abused her. She was able to dramatically change her life after she married Alexander, who came from a wealthy family. Since Alexander chose her for her physical beauty despite her lack of wealth and social connections, Charleigh learned that appearances and exteriors are extremely important. She fixates on herself and her family “looking good” to the outside world and sometimes ignores what is truly going on underneath.

Charleigh has a complex relationship with her only child, Nellie. She desperately wants Nellie to be happy and frequently meddles to try to grant Nellie her desires. However, Charleigh’s investment in Nellie’s happiness is more rooted in guilt and fear than love. She worries about Nellie’s bad moods and erratic temper; Charleigh’s efforts to give Nellie everything she wants are based in an impulse to keep the family dynamic free of conflict. She also feels guilty because Nellie is socially awkward and not beautiful. Since Charleigh has used her own beauty as a form of social capital, she fears that Nellie will be disempowered due to her lack of beauty and charm. Charleigh tries to compensate with her money and influence, shielding Nellie from any consequences of her actions. This aspect of Charleigh’s character is most clear when she doggedly investigates what happens after Blair’s accident, seeking to ensure that Nellie is not accused of anything even though Charleigh suspects Nellie might have been the cause of the incident.

Charleigh does not develop or grow over the course of the novel. Her meddling actually escalates, to the point that she bribes Luke to go on a date with Nellie. She never sees how her behavior is problematic or accepts that it might be better to let Nellie make her own choices and mistakes. Charleigh reveals that she prefers a curated façade over an authentic reality when she lashes out at Jackson after he tells her about Alexander’s affair. Charleigh accuses Jackson of purposefully trying to hurt her. Charleigh also shows extreme cruelty in the final confrontation with Nellie, making statements such as, “you ungrateful, clueless little twat, you don’t even know the half of what I’ve done to help buffer your nothing little life” (445). Charleigh dies without ever understanding the role she played in making many people unhappy.

Jane Swift is a primary character and one of the narrators. She turns 18 over the course of the plot. Jane is beautiful, charismatic, and skilled at getting people to like her; she consciously thinks about how to present a persona that is palatable to others.

When her family moves to Longview from Dallas at the start of the novel, Jane quickly adapts and becomes popular with many of the local teens, including Blair. She deduces that, “here, they are hungry for someone like me” (12). Jane’s popularity is notable because she does not come from a wealthy or influential family. Her family lives a simple, “back to the land” and religiously motivated lifestyle; Jane is expected to dress modestly and does not have access to modern medical treatments. She also sometimes rides a horse rather than driving a car.

Jane is secretive and skilled at concealing her true emotions. She is secretly in love with Luke, a boy she met in Dallas, and goes to great pains to conceal this relationship from her family and the entire town. She also has a tense and antagonistic relationship with her mother, Abigail, and her older sister, Julia. Jane resents their controlling behavior and strict morals about what is considered acceptable for a woman. Jane is freer: She enjoys swimming topless and exploring her sexuality with Luke, and she also dreams of moving to New York. Jane quietly plots and works towards her long-term goals in secrecy.

Jane’s character remains relatively stable, and her values and priorities are heightened as the plot progresses. Jane increasingly senses that her family and the surrounding community are hiding sinister secrets and that running away is the safest course of action. The reveal that Abigail is not her biological mother affirms Jane’s feeling that she does not belong in her family and that she should focus on her relationship with Luke. Jane’s suspicions that Julia may have caused Blair’s accident also affirm that she needs to get away from a dangerously volatile dynamic. The novel’s conclusion does not reveal whether Jane successfully enacts her plan of escaping to New York, leaving her character arc somewhat incomplete.

Jackson Ford is a primary character and one of the narrators. Jackson is a gay man in his 30s who lives in Longview and works as an interior decorator. He is close friends with Charleigh, although this friendship becomes strained over the course of the plot.

Jackson struggles with finding a sense of belonging and authenticity, as no one in the town knows that he is gay, except for Charleigh. He grew up in a wealthy and cosmopolitan family, but his mother cut him off financially until he married a woman, implicitly pressuring Jackson to conform to heterosexual norms. Jackson likes some aspects of his life in Longview, but he also feels isolated and lonely. Jackson falls hard for Ethan because of the latter’s physical attractiveness and because of how he makes Jackson feel special and desired. The connection is not merely physical: After Jackson learns that Abigail is unfaithful, he hopes that Ethan’s marriage might collapse and there could be a chance of a real relationship between the two men.

Jackson’s character evolves as he becomes more cynical and hardened. After Ethan rejects him, Jackson investigates his former lover and unearths troubling information. Jackson also chooses to tell Charleigh about her husband’s betrayal after she is unsympathetic. Jackson becomes less patient and forgiving of others because he increasingly realizes that people around him are selfish, manipulative, and only care about themselves. At the end of the novel, Jackson has broken ties with Charleigh and resolved not to continue their friendship.

Ethan Swift is an important secondary character who becomes part of multiple conflicts in the plot. He is very handsome and charismatic, drawing attention from both men and women in the town. Ethan is a talented woodworker and furniture designer, although it is eventually revealed that he uses his furniture business primarily as a ruse to gain access to the homes of wealthy individuals and then steal from them.

Ethan is good at charming and deceiving others. He builds a complex web of manipulation and deceit to dupe the Andersen family, including seducing and then discarding Jackson. Ethan also engages in concealment within his own family: He hides the truth that Jane is not Abigail’s biological daughter, and it is implied that something sinister happened to Jane’s birth mother. Ethan does not change or grow over the course of the novel, although more information is revealed about his character as the plot unfolds. This plot development gradually casts him in a more sinister and antagonistic light.

Abigail Swift is an important secondary character. She is Ethan’s wife and the mother of three daughters (although it is eventually revealed that she is not Jane’s biological mother).

Abigail is not portrayed as traditionally beautiful, but she radiates contentedness and charisma, which draws many characters to her. Abigail lives on a farm and makes potions, tinctures, and oils. She focuses on a natural, traditional lifestyle and eschews modern conveniences and any luxuries. She wears handmade, rustic dresses, grows most of her own food, tends to chickens, and breastfeeds her youngest child (this is not a common practice for women like Charleigh and her social circle).

Abigail initially seems demure, subservient, and focused on her role as a wife and mother. However, it is eventually revealed that she is cruel and manipulative. Abigail taunts and berates Jane, openly preferring her own daughter (Julia), and she is especially fixated on Jane’s emerging sexuality. Abigail also begins an affair with Alexander; her motivations for this are unclear, as it may be an attempt to gain access to the wealthy Andersen family, or it may be an act of rebelling against her domineering husband.

Julia Swift is the eldest Swift daughter; she is a year older than Jane. For most of the novel, Julia is reserved, quiet, and enigmatic. While Jane openly rebels against her family, Julia seems content to obey familial expectations and follow in her mother’s footsteps. She is modest and demure, and tattles on Jane whenever Jane engages in rebellious behavior such as skinny-dipping. Julia sometimes accompanies Jane to parties, but she always remains distant and aloof from the other teens.

Julia’s sinister nature is only revealed late in the novel when Jane reveals that her sister is obsessed with Luke and may have previously harmed a girl he was romantically interested in. Julia’s jealous and violent tendencies are the reason Jane has been concealing her relationship. At the end of the novel, Julia’s character has not been conclusively established, and readers never have access to her perspective or point of view. The snorkel provides evidence that Julia may be darker and more complex than she appears, as it is implied she could have engineered Blair’s accident.