50 pages • 1-hour read
All the Little Raindrops
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, death, child death, and emotional abuse.
Noelle Meyer
Noelle is the novel’s dynamic protagonist, starting out as a young woman who feels lost after the death of her mother, her father’s subsequent mental health crisis, and her own captivity but turning into a confident and capable mother. During and immediately after her captivity, she is “on […] shaky emotional ground” (196), but moving away from Reno and settling on the East Coast works wonders for her healing by allowing her to get away from a place associated with so much death and anguish. Indeed, it is even important that she leave Evan behind, given what they endured together. She and Evan both describe their feelings for one another as akin to “desperation”; Noelle feels “bereft” without Evan near, but she also recognizes how unhealthy the bond feels. In fact, she thinks, “[S]he’d really been incapable of love [after her escape]. Or a healthy form anyway. And more than that, she’d been especially incapable with Evan” (209). She therefore leaves, putting thousands of miles between herself and Evan so that they can both heal.
By the time Evan locates her, seven years after their escape from captivity, Noelle is better equipped to handle the emotions that being around Evan stirs up: “Noelle was at peace. She felt healed. She could think about what had happened to her without breaking out in a cold sweat” (198). Even as she and Evan spend more time together and return to Reno to investigate their abduction, she is able to be much more intentional in regard to their relationship. While she watches the massacre at Van Daele’s final party, she thinks, “Rome was falling, and she had to bear witness” (368). This allusion suggests how personally monumental this scene is to Noelle—how crucial it is that she witness the destruction of the men who victimized her and experience the sense of closure she gains from watching it. Ultimately, Noelle learns to trust herself and her feelings, so much so that she knows herself to be capable of love again.
Evan Sinclair
Evan is similar to Noelle in many ways, but he is a static character because he does not change throughout the text. He begins the novel with a level of confidence that he never loses, in part because he is a good-looking, “all-American golden boy” (10). He acts in a somewhat entitled way, believing that he can buy people’s loyalty because that is part of the world in which he’s been raised; he repeatedly tries to bargain with the guardian, offering money, cars, and power in exchange for his and Noelle’s safety. However, this confidence is not wholly tied to status. Indeed, he is sure enough of his own abilities and goals that he decides to leave Stanford against his father’s wishes and advice: When Leonard Sinclair withdraws all financial support from his son, Evan gets a job and puts himself through school so that he can pursue his own ambitions rather than his father’s goals for him.
If Evan changes at all, it is in regard to how he heals from The Psychological Impact of Trauma. It is Noelle who moves away, compelling them both to learn to live without the other’s support and understanding, qualities that are inextricably bound up with their shared trauma bond. In her absence, Evan moves on, embarking on other romantic relationships and starting his own private investigation business. However, his feelings for Noelle never entirely go away, nor does his confidence in the relationship’s future. He doesn’t tell Noelle that he’s coming when he first travels to South Carolina, and he doesn’t tell her that he’s coming in the Epilogue either, much less that he is bringing her mother’s ring to give to her. He doesn’t explicitly ask her any questions but merely slips the ring onto her hand and declares it to be “a promise.” By the end of the novel, Evan’s occasionally entitled self-assurance thus gives way to a quieter faith in his bond with Noelle.
Dr. Caspar Vitucci/the Collector
Dr. Vitucci is a static but important secondary character. The novel introduces him as “the Collector,” a moniker he chooses for himself because he collects information about people and uses it to better his own position and achieve his goals. The nickname also allows him to contrast his own character and motivation with those of Van Daele, a man who collects women, jewels, and anything else that represents his privilege and power. From childhood, he has been driven by his desire for revenge; he longs not only to avenge the brutal deaths of his mother and sister but also to bring men who think of themselves as untouchable kings back down to reality, showing them that they are no better than the people they see as “throwaways.”
Vitucci is morally ambiguous and full of contradictions that illuminate The Concurrence of Humanity’s Good and Evil. His family experienced heinous injustice, yet he hides evidence in Leonard Sinclair’s trial, which results in the Meyer family experiencing similar injustice. He helps victims of trauma, like Evan, to improve their mental health, and he even teaches at the local university, empowering other mental health professionals to serve others; at the same time, he murders Dow Maginn and allows Van Daele and his cohort to dismember those captives who refuse to sacrifice themselves for others. He is disgusted by a “game” in which captives become “contestants” on which players can bet, but he is irresistibly drawn to watching and, in his own way, gambling (on which captives can escape). Ultimately, Noelle thinks of him as an “elusive mixture of evil and goodness, revenge and righteousness. Both a sociopath and a savior […] She wondered if he’d be called a villain or a hero” (369). Because Noelle is the character to whom readers are most encouraged to relate, her opinion of Vitucci becomes the novel’s moral pronouncement on him, rendering him ambiguous until the end.
Unlock analysis of every major character
Get a detailed breakdown of each character’s role, motivations, and development.
- Explore in-depth profiles for every important character
- Trace character arcs, turning points, and relationships
- Connect characters to key themes and plot points