Famous Last Words

As the protagonist of Famous Last Words, Willa is a dynamic and round character whose journey is defined by her struggle to reconcile her past trauma with a disorienting new reality. When she moves to Hollywood, she is psychologically imprisoned by the belief that she is responsible for her father’s death a year earlier. Due to this profound but misplaced guilt, she is isolated, guarded, and deeply mistrustful of her own perceptions. Her arc follows her transformation from a girl haunted by the past into a young woman who learns to trust her instincts, confront painful truths, and reclaim her own strength. Willa’s internal conflict directly embodies the theme of The Haunting Power of Unresolved Guilt, as her emotional turmoil manifests in paranormal experiences that she initially dismisses as symptoms of a mental illness.

Willa’s primary motivation at the start of the novel is to atone for her perceived role in her father’s death. She performs a daily ritual with a candle and a moldavite ring in a desperate attempt to contact his spirit, not for comfort but to apologize. She confesses in an internal