Cassia Park is the main character and first-person narrator of the novel. She is 39 when the novel opens, anticipating her imminent 40th birthday with dread and hope. Cassia is a member of a Korean American family that has built its livelihood and family culture around the ancient art of face-reading, a magical skill that allows readers to enter other people’s past lives and determine who their fated lovers are. Cassia has bought into this concept of fated love since she was a child, having discovered her own face-reading capacities when she was 13. Her fraught childhood only intensified her reliance on notions of destiny. Her father, Matthew, left the family when she was two, and her mother died of a brain aneurysm when she was eight. Adhering to her maternal grandmother’s and aunts’ belief system and ancient cultural practice affords her a sense of certainty in a world that otherwise terrifies Cassia, illustrating the theme of Belief in Destiny as Both Comfort and Limitation.

Cassia is a round, dynamic character who changes as a result of her romantic, platonic, and familial relationships. At the novel’s start, Cassia regards herself as a type-A perfectionist who is wedded to rules, schedules, regulations, and order.