Taming 7

Gibsie is the second point-of-view character and protagonist in the novel. He is 17 years old and in his final year at Tommen College. He is described as extremely handsome by several characters, with a strong physique after years of working out and playing on the rugby team. While he is not as talented or as smart as the other boys on the team, he is a good baker, hoping to take over his family’s bakery after he finishes school. He lives with his mother, Sadhbh; stepfather, Keith; and stepbrother, Mark.

Throughout the novel, Gibsie grapples with trauma from his past, exemplifying the theme of The Lasting Impact of Trauma. When he was seven, his father and sister, Bethany, drowned out on the lake. Gibsie was only saved because Claire’s father jumped in after him. Additionally, he was sexually abused by Mark when he was a child. He regularly has nightmares and relives events from his past. The only relief he finds is through Claire, as he sneaks into her room most nights to sleep with her. Their friendship is platonic at the novel’s start but develops into a romantic relationship.

Despite everything that Gibsie has been through, he constantly projects a happy and carefree façade to the world around him. In this way, his character explores the different ways that people cope with trauma. He refuses to face what he has experienced directly, instead convincing himself that he is fine by repeating the phrase that he is “always okay”—an important motif in the novel. In the other novels in the Boys of Tommen series, he is portrayed as the comic relief, always making jokes and getting into escapades that Johnny needs to save him from. Everyone around him believes that he is sexually promiscuous; in reality, he is still traumatized by Mark’s abuse, avoiding penetrative sex until he has sex with Claire. Claire is one of the few people that gets to see the “real” Gibsie, as she knows about his nightmares; however, he even masks the full truth from her.

As Gibsie changes in the novel, he learns to address and confront the traumas from his past. First, he rejects any further contact with Dee, the school’s secretary with whom he had been having a physical relationship since he was 15. Then, he confronts Mark, telling him that he will go to the police if Mark does not move out of their home and never return. Finally, he is forced to talk about his sexual abuse after Claire tells their friend group. While Claire takes away his autonomy in handling his own trauma, there is ultimately hope by the novel’s end that he will heal and grow from the experience. While he is initially devastated by being seen as a “victim” and receiving pity from those around him—as he is afraid that his sexual abuse will define him moving forward—he receives unquestioning support from Claire, Johnny, and Shannon, allowing him to return to school and face his fears of embarrassment.

Lizzie is an antagonist in Taming 7. She is one of Shannon and Claire’s best friends since childhood. However, since her sister, Caoimhe, died by suicide five years before, she has grown more and more angry and distant. She once had a relationship with Claire’s brother, Hugh, but they broke up shortly after Caoimhe’s death. Now, she has an on-and-off relationship with another rugby player, Pierce. Lizzie is the primary protagonist of the novel Releasing 10 (2025), which explores her trauma over her sister’s death and her relationship with Hugh.

While Lizzie is one of the novel’s antagonists—as she constantly starts fights with Gibsie by blaming him for her sister’s death—she is also a complex character. She believes that she knows the truth about Caoimhe’s death, having read her suicide note that seemed to claim that Mark raped her. However, when she is confronted with the truth that Mark raped Gibsie and Caoimhe felt guilty for not believing Gibsie, she denies it, insisting that Gibsie is somehow still responsible.

As a result, at the end of the novel, Lizzie is still feuding with Claire for siding with Gibsie and their friendship is officially finished. Lizzie is largely defined by her trauma, which, due the novel’s limited first-person point of view, is never fully explored.

Johnny is Gibsie’s best friend and the star player of Tommen’s rugby team. He moved to Tommen College as a transfer his first year and immediately befriended Gibsie, defending him from bullies, then training him in rugby. He serves mainly as a system of support for Gibsie, standing by his side through Lizzie’s verbal abuse, his struggles with his feelings for Claire, and the revelation about Gibsie’s past sexual abuse. In this way, he exemplifies The Importance of Love and Personal Connection, as his friendship plays a key role in Gibsie’s ability to finally begin to heal from his past traumas.

Just as Johnny is Gibsie’s best friend, Shannon is Claire’s. Past novels explore Shannon’s physical abuse at the hands of her father, which ended only when he died by suicide after burning down his home and killing Shannon’s mother.

Although Shannon used to be shy and quiet, suffering from bullying at the hands of her classmates, in Taming 7 she is portrayed as stronger and more certain, largely because of her relationship with Johnny and the support from his parents, who adopted her after her parents’ deaths. She serves as Claire’s primary support system. She is central to Claire’s change, as she compares Gibsie’s abuse to her own and helps her understand what Gibsie has been through and what he needs to address his past trauma and to heal.