Reckless Girls: A Novel

Nico is Lux’s boyfriend. Like many of the other characters in the novel, he exemplifies the often-deceiving nature of first impressions and helps the author interrogate Trust and Betrayal in Relationships. Nico initially seems friendly, supportive, and grounded. Lux loves the fact that he doesn’t “worry about the future” and that “no worries” is his catchphrase (10). He responds to stressful situations with calm preparedness—a quality that Lux feels she lacks. She meets him at a time when she herself feels particularly unmoored, and Nico represents stability. 

Although Nico’s family is affluent, he presents himself as someone who does not care about money or material wealth, choosing to forge his own path and refusing both financial support and a role in his father’s law firm. Nico is competent and capable and easily finds work repairing boats in various marinas. As the story progresses and Lux’s perspective becomes clearer, Nico’s affability and empathy are ultimately revealed as a façade. What Lux begins to characterize as “bro-y” behavior once they are en route to Meroe becomes increasingly thoughtless and unempathetic. His infidelity with Amma represents a turning point in Lux’s journey toward agency and independence. 

Nico’s relationship to affluence is also more complex than it initially seems. Lux observes that Nico feels entitled to cheat on her because the two had been bickering and she seemed more interested in making friends with the rest of the group than spending time with him. She realizes that he may have turned down a lucrative career but that the sense of entitlement that developed during his ultra-affluent childhood and adolescence remains intact. Along with Jake and Amma, he is part of this novel’s indictment of wealth and privilege: The vigilante justice that Eliza, Brittany, and ultimately Lux carry out reflects a desire for revenge and power rooted in systemic inequality.

Brittany, one of a pair of tourists that contract Nico to bring them to Meroe Island, presents herself as an outgoing, friendly individual, but like most of the novel’s characters, there’s much more to her than initially meets the eye. Unlike Amma, she forms bonds quickly and has no trouble making connections with people. Lux is drawn to this quality in her, and the two develop an easy camaraderie that Lux never experiences with Amma. Brittany also bonds with the other visitors to Meroe Island, although never in a way that strikes Lux as inappropriate. Brittany, however, is also prone to mood swings. She spends many of the novel’s flashbacks in tears and is not entirely emotionally stable by the time the group travels to Meroe—details that Hawkins plants to hint at Brittany’s complex backstory. 

Like Lux, Brittany is grieving a tremendous loss, which creates a natural solidarity between them. Brittany’s entire family was killed in an alcohol-fueled car accident, and she has been left entirely alone. Grief is a key part of her characterization, and it is also at the heart of her sincere interest in friendship with Lux: She hopes to find in Lux a kindred spirit, someone who will join her and Chloe/Eliza as they seek to punish the kind of people who victimize women like them. Brittany initially hides both her true identity and her mission of vigilante justice. Like many of the novel’s other figures, she is characterized by duplicity and a willingness to lie. Brittany is even willing to commit murder, killing Nico in order to “help” Lux free herself from their toxic relationship.

Amma, Brittany’s traveling partner, introduces herself and Brittany to Nico and Lux as college friends. Like many of the characters in this novel, there is a vast difference between the way that Amma presents herself and the reality of her identity. She initially seems more reserved and less emotional than Brittany. Lux observes that “crying does not come easily to her” (60). Although she does not warm to people quickly and Lux struggles to form a friendship with her, Amma is polite and gracious, noting when others are uncomfortable in conversations and providing them with an easy way to change the subject. Amma is physically attractive and, Lux observes, shares the ease with which Nico moves through the world. Lux thinks that they seem like they’d make a good couple, fueling Lux’s insecurity. Both of these qualities stem from Amma’s affluent background: She moves through the world with ease because the only real difficulty she’s ever experienced is her boyfriend’s arrest and imprisonment for a drunk-driving accident that killed Brittany’s family. 

Amma and Brittany met in a grief support group where Amma claimed to have lost her boyfriend. She befriended Brittany, hiding their connection, which demonstrates the ease with which Amma lies and omits the truth. Hawkins’s reveal of Amma’s past duplicity and Amma’s betrayal of Lux when she sleeps with Nico illustrate the ease with which people can conceal their true natures under a mask of more positive, likeable qualities.

Jake is Eliza’s boyfriend. Hawkins describes him as charming, good-looking, and laid-back. He has a “million-dollar smile” and the kind of rugged, handsome features that Lux thinks wouldn’t look out of place in a men’s fashion magazine (87). Like Nico, he comes from privilege. His family’s money, however, is ill-gotten. His father is a prominent Australian drug trafficker, and Jake shares his family’s lack of regard for the law, personal ethics, and remorse. 

Jake’s family’s drug-trafficking operation inspired Eliza’s mission of vigilante justice and her plot to punish him on Meroe Island. Jake’s father is responsible for Eliza’s mother’s lengthy prison sentence, but he has never expressed guilt or even interest in how Eliza’s mother is doing during her incarceration. He is part of this novel’s condemnation of wealth and privilege: He and Nico both pretend to be more down-to-earth than they are and show very little regard for other people’s feelings or experiences. Unlike Nico, however, Jake is comfortable with his affluence and owns his privilege rather than distancing himself from it. Like many of this novel’s other characters, Jake has no problem lying and conceals the drugs on his boat, his role in Robbie’s death, and the work he does to conceal Nico’s death. His willingness to cheat on Eliza without a second thought further reinforces his lack of ethics.

The character who alternately uses the names Chloe and Eliza is Jake’s girlfriend and the heart of the novel’s indictment of wealth and power. She is presented initially as an affluent, confident woman. She is beautiful and easygoing, and Lux notes that “her accent is pure BBC” (93). She and Jake engage in witty banter and have a rapport that Lux admires. The backstory chapters reveal a complex and morally ambiguous Chloe/Eliza. Her primary motivation in the novel is revenge. She wants to punish Jake for his family’s role in her mother’s incarceration, but she also wants to extend that punishment to all wealthy men who are, she argues, always capable of preying upon individuals with less wealth and influence. 

Chloe/Eliza sees this kind of power imbalance as being at the heart of systemic inequality and wants to reclaim her lost power through vigilante justice. She orchestrates the trip to Meroe to punish Jake personally but also encourages both Brittany and Lux to join her in carrying out such justice as an ongoing mission. By making her living through pickpocketing, she also hopes to rob the wealthy of at least some of their power. Because Lux ultimately takes up her mantle and finances her life through theft, the novel does not expressly condemn this brand of vigilante justice. In the moral world of the novel, revenge and vigilante justice are permissible in ways that exploitation and betrayal are not.