51 pages • 1-hour read
No Place Left to Hide
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 death, child death, graphic violence, harassment, physical abuse, emotional abuse, substance use, and cursing.
Brooke Goodwin
Brooke is the point-of-view protagonist of No Place Left to Hide. She is a high school senior who attends the prestigious Waldorf Prep. She is an only child of a privileged family, an overachiever focused on continuing her family’s legacy at Yale. The Goodwin name weighs heavily on Brooke. She frequently reminds herself to tailor her behavior to the ideals of her family, often repeating maxims like “Goodwins don’t make a scene” (66) or “Goodwins don’t get to fall apart” (10). This shows that her personal ambitions, wants, and needs are frequently disregarded in service of her family’s reputation. At the Ivy Day beach party, she is asked what she hopes to study at Yale and comes to realize that she doesn’t actually know. Getting into Yale was an end on its own right, and beyond gaining achievements for her family’s sake, she doesn’t have any goals.
Brooke has a strained relationship with her parents, her father in particular, because they are the ones who stress the importance of the family legacy. She worries about how her behavior and personal troubles could impact them, particularly their careers and ambitions. This is why she keeps the harassment she receives a secret despite the its escalation.
As the narrative goes on, Brooke reveals the traits that make her an anti-hero. She has deep insecurities and a desire for prestige that manifest as cruelty. She is manipulative and hyperaware of her social performance, exemplifying the theme of Crafting a Public Persona to Hide Secrets. The pale pink peacoat she wears at the beginning of the novel symbolizes her sweet, perky Waldorf persona though her internal monologue reveals her sharp, calculating observations. She’s created a “perfect” image that aligns with people’s expectations of her, but this comes at the expense of her forming meaningful connections or developing her own interests.
Brooke is fixated on class and status. The first glimpse of this is when she arrives at Beau’s beach house and instantly judges its small size. To Brooke, from the outside, it resembles a studio apartment that a “single mother” would rent. In reality, it’s a modern beachfront property with a wall of windows facing the sea. But Brooke can only compare it to her parents’ large, fashionable lake house that can hold over 40 people (the number of partygoers she estimates are on the beach). Brooke’s calculating nature develops in the flashbacks to the night of Claire’s death and culminates in her attempt to kill Jena after revealing her guilt over Claire’s death. Ultimately, Brooke becomes her father’s daughter, a ruthless career climber who simply can’t maintain the façade as well as he can.
As a YA protagonist, Brooke is initially relatable because she is a student under intense pressure to succeed. The dark academia subgenre gives her character a horror-informed edge, as she chooses murder as the way to deal with this pressure. Even though the novel is realistic, the gothic genre heightens the threats she faces and the measures she takes to address them. The novel doesn’t reward Brooke’s choices; she receives justice by the novel’s end.
Claire Heck
Claire Heck is Brooke’s former classmate and best-friend-turned-enemy. She is the main antagonist in the “Before” sections of the novel, and her death serves as the inciting incident for the present-day plot.
At her first appearance, Claire seems to be a capricious and impulsive person with a penchant for dramatics. She is manipulative, using the sympathy of Brooke’s classmates as a way to stay at the party she was not invited to. She rivalled Brooke even when they were friends and surpassed her socially, academically, and romantically. Shortly after Brooke revealed that she had feelings for Dylan, Claire courted him, and they ended up dating. Claire did this to slight Brooke, but Dylan recalls being genuinely happy with Claire, until Claire’s father was disbarred and she became obsessed with the Goodwin family.
As the initial antagonist, Claire has a history of malicious behavior toward Brooke. Prior to leaving Waldorf, she took the dance team bus for a joy ride and blamed Brooke, and she stole Brooke’s debit card to buy $1,000 in clothes. She donated them to the clothes drive to put herself ahead of everyone else. She is also known to use her social influence to cause harm. She is the only character who knows Brooke’s true nature, correctly surmising that Brooke sabotaged Claire father’s career to get Claire out of the way. This prior event is what caused her antagonism at the party in the first place and the conflict that resolves in her death.
Claire apologizes when Brooke attempts to take the boat out on the lake. She says she was wrong to crash the party and promises to leave and never return. She seems sincere, but her voice quickly hardens, and she demands that Brooke leave the boat, suggesting that her apology might have been an act. Like Brooke, Claire calculates her social performances, making her an unreliable character and leaving her true intentions up for debate.
Jena Howton
Jena is Brooke’s best friend and Felix’s girlfriend. She is a flat secondary character who, for most of the novel, acts as a catalyst until she is revealed to be the antagonist in the present-day timeline. Jena is enthusiastic and sociable, acting as Brooke’s closes confidant though she has ulterior motives. She puts a great deal of importance on attending social events, and Brooke dodges her calls and text to avoid being roped into the Ivy Day party.
Despite the former closeness between Claire and Brooke before their fall-out, Brooke asserts that she and Jena have always been closer friends. As Brooke is often emotionally abandoned by her parents and self-conscious around other school friends, Jena is frequently her only source of emotional connection and support. In the “Before” timeline, Jena is very protective of Brooke and worries deeply about how Claire has hurt her in the past. But she’s not blindly devoted to Brooke; she is sensitive to Brooke’s snobbishness and is quick to point it out when Brooke judges people, as she does at Beau’s beach house. Not being as upper-class as Brooke, Jena has fewer pressures on her and is free to choose her own career path. Brooke envies Jena for this, as Brooke feels more restricted by her parents’ expectations. Jena’s dedication to protecting Brooke makes her doubly hurt when Brooke blames the boating accident on her. This incident changes Jena from a caring friend into an enemy set on revenge.
Jena puts a series of events in motion to clear her name and, hopefully, force Brooke to confess. The first is providing an anonymous tip that results in the special investigation. When this doesn’t work, she teams up with Felix and Dylan to mount a harassment campaign on Brooke to pressure her into confession. This reveals Jena to be another character Crafting a Public Persona to Hide Secrets. She acts like Brooke’s friend while conducting the harassment campaign. She never intended for significant violence or threat to occur, and the boys take the plan too far by attacking the girls and the police officer during the Bronco chase. Ultimately, Jena’s only goal was to clear her name and make Brooke confess to her falsehoods. Though her methods are questionable, they result in Brooke and Mr. Goodwin being caught for their crimes.
Dylan Miller
Dylan Millar is Brooke’s love interest and Claire’s ex-boyfriend. He’s a flat secondary character who shifts from a friend to a secret antagonist as the story progresses. Dylan is popular in school and is a member of the soccer team. He is close friends with Felix, Jena’s boyfriend, and often reveals a soft spot for Brooke. He rarely attends parties, as he has responsibilities at his family’s bookstore, and he is a high achiever, securing a place at Brown University early in the novel. In the “Before” timeline, he’s a positive and earnest character, and winning his affection is often the source of tension between Claire and Brooke.
Unbeknownst to Dylan, Claire dated him to spite Brooke, who had expressed her interest in him to Claire. Claire and Dylan broke up shortly after Claire left Waldorf, and Dylan noticed a sudden change in her personality, including an obsession with the Goodwins. In the “Before” timeline, he is conflict-averse, backing off when Claire crashes the party and distancing himself from Brooke in the months following the accident.
Nonetheless, after the accident he works with Jena and Felix to harass Brooke into confessing. He, like many of the characters in the book, has a manipulative streak that overshadows his commitment to getting justice for Jena and Claire. He is willing to use his knowledge of Brooke’s attraction toward him to lure her into their trap and scare her into confession. He invites Brooke to the prom despite, by this point, thinking poorly of her. Dylan escalates the violence against Brooke during the car chase, which was never part of Jena’s plan. In doing so, he and Felix put both girls in danger and intentionally hit a police officer with their car, which is a crime in its own right.
The Goodwins
Brooke’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin, are foils and catalysts for Brooke. With high-powered careers, they are ambitious and status-orientated. Mrs. Goodwin is Waldorf’s principal, and Mr. Goodwin is a lawyer hoping to become a circuit judge. They are frequently distant and distracted, and Brooke’s father clearly views his career as more important than Brooke’s well-being. Their goal as parents is to mold Brooke in their image and instill the importance of protecting their family’s name. They are both Yale University legacy alumni, and they expect Brooke to follow in their footsteps.
As catalysts, their moods and demands dictate Brooke’s actions. She’s hesitant about going to the beach party until she gets emotional validation from her mother after being accepted into Yale. Getting that rare validation is what motivates Brooke. She notes that the hug her mother gives her after hearing the news may be the biggest hug she’s even given Brooke in her life. Brooke is relieved that the emotional “chasm” that’s built up between them in the past six months disappears, and her anxiety ebbs. She even defends her father, who is shown to be severe and ruthless. At hearing her Yale news, he admonishes the girls not to get in trouble at “dinner,” which is where they say they are going. Later, when Jena calls him a “dick,” Brooke corrects her, saying that he’s “driven.” She admits to herself that his reaction is a “letdown” but shrugs it off.
As foils, the Goodwins reflect Brooke’s thinking, attitude, and ambitions. As soon as Brooke reveals Claire’s death to her father, he comes up with a plan that will exonerate her and implicate Jena, ultimately leading to a cover up of the accident. This isn’t because he wants to spare Brooke pain; his sole interest is protecting the Goodwin family name. Brooke will do anything it takes to protect that name because it’s the only worth she represents to her parents. Her father proves this when he disavows having any part in covering up Claire’s murder; his claim that he knew nothing about her death shows how Brooke developed such a transactional attitude toward relationships. The book doesn’t use this insight to excuse this outlook, only to show how it came to be.
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