Daisy

Daisy, a 15-year-old New Yorker, is the novel's protagonist and narrator. Describing herself as a skinny, plain girl, she quickly establishes that nobody uses her formal name, Elizabeth, because it sounds too fancy for her. Even so, Daisy's sardonic and insightful views on just about everything in her life soon belie her modesty. She is anything but plain, at least in terms of her personality. She often uses her wit defensively, to ward off intimidating people or circumstances. She is capable of forging strong emotional bonds to others, as she does with her cousins, but she also will excoriate people she doesn't like, such as her stepmother. She takes a contrary stance against her father and stepmother by refusing to eat, which she argues to the reader is because she fears her stepmother will poison her. Yet she also admits that she doesn't eat because it bothers people...