The Favorite Girl

Bradley is a young man who wears green contacts over his brown eyes and has dyed his brown hair platinum blonde. He initially appears to be the Ivory family’s butler. Demi doesn’t ask about his last name until the end of the novel. She and Bradley don’t get along initially, and their romance aligns with the enemies-to-lovers trope common in romance fiction. Demi thinks that Conrad is attractive at first; Bradley is Conrad’s less charming foil. However, when Conrad’s violent side is revealed and Demi learns about Bradley’s concern for his sister, Demi prefers to be around Bradley and chooses to have sex for the first time with him.

After Demi is forced to marry and sleep with Conrad, Bradley helps Demi drug and escape from Conrad. Bradley also gives her a suicide pill to use in case she can’t get away from Conrad, birth control pills to keep Conrad from impregnating her, and shoes that she’s always wanted. These endear Bradley to Demi until the final chapter. At this point, she learns that Bradley and his sister are the offspring of Ian and one of the prisoners that he raped. When Bradley suggests that Demi undergo the white-therapy and that they take over his father’s business of selling brides in the Bahamas, she realizes that “[h]e was groomed to be this way; he was raised by monsters […] He’ll never stop” (377). All his kindness was a facade, and he is actually more like Ian and Conrad than Demi thought. To escape Bradley, she puts the suicide pill that he gave her in his drink.

Conrad is initially portrayed as a foil to Bradley. He “look[s] like one of those men who pose[] on a yacht with a bottle of Armani cologne in an ad” (67). Like Bradley, Conrad wears green contacts. He is the son of Ian and Daphne, and they have raised him to treat women as property and run the family business. Conrad is on break from medical school to get married. He initially picked Demi’s sister, Layla, out of the bride catalog but changed his mind when Layla had sex with the human trafficker holding her. Conrad’s second choice is Demi, and he uses Layla’s nickname for Demi, which unsettles her.

Demi becomes more than unsettled when Conrad turns violent. He sexually assaults Demi before the wedding, and he rapes Bradley’s sister in front of both Bradley and Demi. After these actions, Demi is repulsed by Conrad and decides to have sex for the first time with Bradley instead. After Conrad and Demi are married, Conrad kills his parents and drinks their blood. He also forces Demi to drink the blood, saying that his parents sacrificed themselves in a Christ-like fashion. Demi makes Conrad believe that she is a “virgin” on their wedding night by cutting herself so that she bleeds on the towel he puts down. Then, she serves him drugged whiskey, believing that it will cause him to pass out. However, Bradley drugged the alcohol with a deadly substance, and Conrad dies on his wedding night after Demi escapes.

Ian, the head of the Ivory Estate and business, as well as the father of Bradley and Conrad, is the main antagonist of the novel. He has “platinum blonde, meticulously brushed hair [and] the sharpest and brightest green eyes imaginable” (117). Ian is the one who forces everyone around him to match these physical characteristics with hair dye and contacts. He is considered the “best orthopedic surgeon in the southeast” (154); however, he spends most of his time sexually assaulting his prisoners and arranging for them to be sold. He also created and implemented a white-therapy program—a form of psychological torture rooted in sensory deprivation—to turn his prisoners into docile wives who can be sold for millions. When the women are unsatisfactory to the clients, Ian kills them, buries them in the peony garden, and uses their bones to decorate his office.

Demi dislikes Ian almost immediately because he begins insulting her shortly after meeting her. He progresses to sexually assaulting Demi multiple times (more times and more severely than Conrad), stopping short of penetration to maintain her “virginity” for Conrad. She thinks of Ian as an irredeemable “demon” (343), while his sons and wife have the potential to be redeemed if they leave the Ivory Estate. Ian, Demi thinks, is “the pinnacle of it all” (335). He is the height of illegal and immoral activities in the novel and the most evil of all the characters. Ian’s and Daphne’s throats are slit on Conrad’s wedding night; it is their tradition for one generation to die and the next to take over the business after a marriage.

Daphne is Ian’s wife and Conrad’s mother. She was “once a caged girl” before marrying Ian (349). After their marriage, she is known as a “socialite and philanthropist” (154). Daphne owns a variety of blonde wigs made from dyed hair taken from various prisoners. She is said to have a “cold presence” (201). However, Demi projects her desires for a mother onto Daphne and sees her as a source of love as well as a victim who needs rescuing. Daphne refuses to leave Ian and the estate when Demi suggests that they run away together.

Daphne explains that she believes in Ian’s misogynistic ethos; that is, she believes that women should be subservient to men. Allowing men to control women will improve society, Daphne argues. This is what Daphne has been conditioned to think, and she is unable or unwilling to break out of her conditioning. Daphne’s willingness to participate in torturing and selling brides, as well as allowing Ian to abuse those brides, leads Demi to say that Daphne “can’t even call [herself] a woman” because she is a traitor to her own gender (351). Daphne dies with Ian on Conrad’s wedding night; before her death, she says that it is an honor to be a sacrifice.

Becca and Misha work for the Ivory family. Becca is their “keeper and beauty expert” (125). She wears a “thick layer of makeup” (124), unlike the other women, and blonde wigs. Becca confides in Demi that she escaped an abusive husband before coming to the Ivory Estate and “was once a caged girl” like Daphne (318). By saving Becca from abuse, the Ivory family earned her loyalty. She does Demi’s hair and makeup for most of the novel. However, at the end, Becca slits her own throat and is replaced with “a woman who [i]s dressed exactly like Becca and look[s] just like her, but it [i]s clearly not her” (348). The sudden death and next-day replacement of Becca mirror what happens to Misha.

Misha was the housekeeper, and “favorite girl” (Ivory family fiancée), before Demi was chosen. Demi thinks that Misha is “beautiful; her hair [i]s blonde, but unlike everyone else’s, you c[an] see her original dark brown roots growing out” (100). Misha plays the harp at her farewell dinner, which is also Demi’s welcome dinner. After dinner, Demi finds Misha with her throat slit and is framed for her murder. The following day, another woman, whom Demi calls “Misha 2.0” (129), replaces the original Misha. This Misha gives Demi instructions about how to do her job and isn’t seen again.

Daisy is one of the women who is imprisoned when Demi arrives at the Ivory Estate. Demi serves Daisy food and cleans her cell. When Demi is in her cell, Daisy mouths, “[r]un” (173)—foreshadowing the horrors that will soon be revealed. Demi doesn’t take this advice, and she learns that Daisy is Bradley’s sister. Ian is their father, and their mother was a prisoner whom Ian raped. Daisy is a foil of Layla. Demi tries to help Bradley protect Daisy because she feels guilty that she was unable to protect Layla. Demi relates to Bradley because he demonstrates concern for his sister.

Daisy is married to Mason, a client of the Ivory family, and made to consummate the marriage in front of Bradley and an audience. Conrad also rapes Daisy in front of Bradley. When Bradley tells Demi the plan for her to escape on her wedding night, he also tells her that Daisy isn’t coming with them. He claims that Daisy is “happy with Davenport […] basically a living corpse” (354). She is brainwashed into accepting her fate and abandoned by Bradley.

Isabella is a “virgin” bride who is returned. Ian gave her to local police officer Tate as a bribe. However, Tate returns her because she refuses to participate in the humiliating sexual practices that he likes. After Isabella is returned, Ian watches two of his security staff sexually assault her.

These men are static, minor characters who treat women as objects. In addition to returning Isabella for rejecting his sexual desires, Officer Tate comes to the Ivory house after Demi calls 911 to report that women are imprisoned. Tate looks at a woman in a glass cage and says that Ian is legally treating her, and all the other women at the estate, for drug addiction.

Dr. Mason Davenport is a client of the Ivory family. He purchases Daisy and agrees to allow Conrad to have sex with her after Mason has sex with her on their wedding night.

Trent Smith appears only in a flashback and in Demi’s memories. He is “a police officer” and a human trafficker who supplies the Ivory family with women (215). Demi’s parents sold her and Layla to Trent. Layla slept with Trent, preventing herself from having to marry Conrad.