Anna and Tom are the only distinct characters in Perfection. Rather than individuals, they are characterized as a unit. There are only a few minor passages in which they are referred to as individuals: In reference to their individual parents’ careers, when they are hiding from each other their social media use out of embarrassment, and when they argue about whose idea it was to spend time in Sicily. Otherwise, they are grouped as “Anna and Tom”—always written in that order—and share the same experiences and thoughts. Therefore, for the purposes of this guide, they are treated as a character unit.

Anna and Tom are characterized as types, a representation of the “creative expat” in 2010s Berlin, rather than as individuals. The novel never explicitly clarifies the couple’s city of origin, noting that they moved to Berlin from “a large but peripheral southern European city” (19). However, Latronico has referred to them as Italian graphic designers in interviews. They came of age alongside the Internet, and their hobbies of learning design software led into their careers when “favors turned into paid gigs” (19). Their worldview centers around the importance of aesthetics, as they had “grown up with the notion that individuality manifested itself as a set of visual differences, immediately decodable and in constant need of updating” (19). They were good at their jobs in part because they understood the human need for expression of uniqueness as similar to that of companies in need of differentiating branding factors.

They met and fell in love at a young age, attending university together. After, they left their “large but peripheral southern European city” for Berlin when it began to feel dull. Their families don’t understand their lifestyle or choices, being from an earlier generation. His parents “were the joint owners of a large clothing store; her mother was an accountant and her father a lawyer” (27). There are no physical descriptions of the characters throughout the novel. This contributes to their function as “template” or cipher characters; they could, in a sense, be any couple of this age and life experience living as expats in a major European city.

Their relationship is characterized in more detail than either of them are as individuals. However, it is heavily inflected by their digital environment and comparison to others on social media and in their social circles. They relate to one another in both the real world and in their online realms, as their “conversations flowed seamlessly between the digital and physical domains. They would post on each other’s timelines and discuss the stories over their monitors while they worked. Sometimes they would burst out laughing at exactly the same time, having been fed the same meme on their feeds” (56). Although they are initially happy and in love, they are represented as distracted and lacking in real-world intimacy both in terms of time spent together and in their sex life.

Their relationship devolves over time, reflecting The Negative Effects of Social Media on Intimacy. Early in Part 2, they are represented as being deeply in love. Several moments in the novel show their tenderness and affection for each other. For example, that “they would fall asleep breathing in each other’s smell, whispering little jokes, sweet nothings, plans for the next day. But what they were really saying was a prayer, a silent and strangely solemn prayer for things to remain exactly as they were. It was always answered” (39). This passage suggests their closeness, as well as foreshadows their eventual change and disconnect.

Anna and Tom’s character trajectory is connected, as their personal identities are, to their location and lifestyle situation. The novel represents a long period of time, and Anna and Tom age as the city of Berlin changes: “And the more they thought about it, the less Anna and Tom could tell whether the change had occurred in the city, so much more open in their twenties, or in them, who were now closer to forty” (92). They mature in the sense that they begin to see their life as they represent it on social media differently, with social media posts that are incompatible with reality becoming a “con.” They also become increasingly disillusioned with the expatriate life that they formerly viewed as making them superior to others. However, they do not change in terms of their level of focus on aesthetics and need for external validation. That the novel ends with the words of an influencer reviewing their new hotel shows that their ultimate contentment and self-worth remain heavily influenced by outside opinions and comparison. Their decision to renovate the farmhouse into a luxury guesthouse also suggests that they will bring the same negative impacts of gentrification and expatriate exploitation to their home country, instead of breaking the cycle.