Lily Michaels-Ryan

Lily, the narrator of the novel, is a teen girl navigating high school while dealing with ADHD and dyslexia. Over the course of the novel, Lily experiences the classic coming-of-age struggles in a very unique way due to her neurological differences. She feels she is broken in the eyes of society because she is "incapable of sitting still for hours at a time and performing the mind-numbing, repetitive tasks that I am required to do" (294). Unable to focus in school, Lily is constantly skipping class and forgetting to hand in assignments - to the point where she decides to fail school altogether. She believes that moving in with her dad, who left the family five years prior, will solve all of her problems.

When Lily lands herself in trouble at the vice principal's office for breaking the wall between two classrooms, she crosses paths with Abelard, who...