Keep Your Friends Close

Brooke is a primary point-of-view character, deuteragonist, and an unreliable narrator whose intense emotional state serves as a red herring for much of the novel. The trauma of her wife, Abby, abruptly ending their marriage sends Brooke into a spiral characterized by desperation, obsession, and erratic behavior. As an outsider in the West Hollywood Moms’ Club, a group she joined at Abby’s insistence, Brooke is already in a precarious social position. Her subsequent emotional crisis, including a violent public outburst fueled by alcohol after years of sobriety, makes her the perfect scapegoat for Kiersten’s death. The other characters consistently misinterpret her actions, even viewing her frantic, expert-level CPR on Kiersten as not a desperate attempt to save a friend but as the strange reaction of a guilty party. Their interpretations of Brooke’s behavior nudge the reader to jump to similarly false conclusions.

Brooke’s character is a case study in The Unreliability of Perception in a World of Deceit. Her pain skews her perspective, and she responds to her mistreatment in destructive ways (e.g., spying on her ex), yet her perceptions of being wronged are largely accurate. She is a victim of gaslighting, not only from Abby but from the entire social group that ostracizes and suspects her. Her statement, “After the worst thing happened to you, you weren’t afraid of bad things happening anymore” (3), reveals a psychological state that is numb to shock, which the other characters read as coldness or guilt. The final, violent act she commits against Abby is the tragic culmination of her powerlessness. After losing her wife, her social standing, her credibility, and finally her child, her desperation turns to a destructive rage, completing her transformation into a perpetrator of violence.

Jade is the novel’s primary antagonist, a round character who conceals her duplicity behind a facade of a supportive friend and struggling mother. Motivated by a deep-seated feeling of being second best and a desperate desire to escape her financial precarity and unsatisfying marriage, Jade engages in a series of calculated deceptions. Her most significant manipulation is the fabrication of her daughter Lily’s cancer diagnosis. She uses this lie to elicit sympathy and, more importantly, to gain access to Whitney’s secret escort business, which she sees as a financial lifeline: “She’d given me access to all of [the funds] just like Colin said she would. It was amazing how well he knew her. Enough to know she’d never let me in on the business unless there was a good enough reason. That’s where the cancer story came in” (238). Jade’s cool rationalization demonstrates her willingness to exploit her own child for personal gain, illustrating the toxic lengths to which the characters go in the performance of motherhood and social status.

Jade’s deceit and disloyalty extend to nearly every relationship in her life. She begins an affair with Colin, Whitney’s husband, which represents the ultimate violation of female friendship and reinforces the theme of the corrosive power of secrets. Her crime itself is not premeditated but a crime of panicked passion: When Kiersten discovers the affair, Jade impulsively strikes her with a “mothering award” trophy, a symbol of how the group’s competitive drive for recognition turns deadly. However, her subsequent actions, including placing Kiersten’s body in the pool and maintaining her innocence, reveal her capacity for detachment and self-preservation. Jade’s confession reveals her distorted justification: a lifetime of feeling overlooked gave her, in her mind, the right to seize a moment of feeling chosen and loved, no matter the cost. Her actions serve as commentary on what can fester behind a veneer of suburban perfection.

Kiersten is the catalyst of the novel; her death is the central mystery that unravels the secrets of her friend group. In life, she is the charismatic, seemingly flawless leader of the West Hollywood Moms’ Club, a woman who excels at crafting an image of perfect domesticity and friendship. She is a round character whose true nature is revealed only after her death, forcing her friends and the reader to re-evaluate everything they thought they knew about her. Her perfectionism masks deep insecurities and profound secrets, most notably her infertility. The posthumous twist that neither her daughter, Rinley, nor the baby she was carrying at the time of her death was biologically hers or her husband’s reframes her entire character. She secretly used Whitney’s donor embryos, a deception that speaks to her desperate need to maintain the appearance of a perfect life, even at the cost of authentic relationships.

Kiersten’s role highlights the theme of the corrosive power of secrecy, as her own secrets are as damaging as anyone else’s. Her jealousy over Whitney’s growing closeness with Jade shows the cracks in their supposedly perfect friendship. Her death in her own swimming pool symbolizes the hidden dangers lurking just beneath the placid surface of the characters’ lives. The other characters use Kiersten’s memory to project their own guilt, fears, and deceptions, making the reconstruction of her true self a key part of the narrative’s exploration of unreliable perception.

Abby is a static, flat character who acts as the primary antagonist in her ex-wife Brooke’s storyline. Her defining action is her abrupt and cold declaration that she wants a divorce, an act that precipitates Brooke’s character arc. Throughout the novel, Abby is emotionally detached and self-interested. She refuses to engage in meaningful conversation with Brooke about the end of their marriage, quickly moving on to a new, younger partner and displaying disregard for Brooke’s pain. Her decision to take their son, Julian, away from Brooke, citing concerns over Brooke’s mental health in the wake of Kiersten’s death, is the ultimate act of control. While she frames this as a protective measure, it’s a cruel final severance, stripping Brooke of the one remaining positive element in her life. Abby embodies passive antagonism through her dismissive cruelty and her ability to weaponize Brooke’s emotional vulnerability against her.

Colin is Whitney’s husband and a supporting character whose weakness and deceit are central to the novel’s interlocking betrayals. He conceals his relapsing gambling addiction, which leads Whitney to begin an illicit business to maintain their family’s financial and social standing. Colin is charming but fundamentally weak-willed and selfish. He allows Whitney to manage the fallout from his addiction while he seeks validation and escape elsewhere, having an affair with Jade. In the end, Colin reveals his true nature by abandoning both women, taking the money Jade helped him steal from Whitney, and fleeing the country. He is a static character who consistently chooses the easiest path, leaving destruction in his wake.

Ryan is a flat, supporting character whose passivity creates the conditions for his wife, Jade, to engage in desperate, destructive actions. Unemployed and experiencing what is implied to be depression, Ryan seeks solace in video games, which leaves Jade to manage their dire financial situation and family life alone. Jade sees this as an abdication of responsibility, which fuels her resentment and her justification for her affair and theft.

Ryan plays a pivotal, if accidental, role in solving the central mystery. A voicemail left on his phone during the night of the murder provides the objective evidence of Jade’s involvement. His decision to bring this evidence to the police after he learns of Jade’s affair is his single moment of significant action in the novel, making him the unlikely agent of justice.

Tommy is the grieving widower, a static character whose primary role is to react to the escalating revelations about his deceased wife, Kiersten. He is a devoted husband and a loyal friend, particularly to Colin. His devastation over Kiersten’s death appears genuine and profound. However, the posthumous discovery that Kiersten was not the biological mother of their child, Rinley, and was pregnant with another man’s embryo at the time of her death, completely shatters his understanding of their life together. As a man who discovers he was married to a stranger, he highlights the costs of deception.