Boy is the ostensible protagonist of the novel. Two of the three parts, making roughly three-quarters of the novel, are told from her perspective as the participant narrator. Boy considers herself to be a relatively plain, average person: she is intelligent, but she doesn’t care to do well in school. She isn’t unattractive, but finds that while a subset of boys are hopelessly, and strangely, in love with her, most pay her no mind. She grew up in an abusive single-parent household on the Lower East Side of New York City; she finally escaped in her early twenties, taking the opportunity to start fresh. She is not classically ambitious, desiring only to have a quiet, happy, uneventful life. Although she marries Arturo Whitman, she feels that she loves Charlie Vacic, at least until late in the novel, when she is finally able to let Charlie go. She is fiercely protective of her daughter, Bird, although Bird describes their relationship as more like siblings than mother-daughter. Like Bird, Boy has trouble with her reflection, which is not always accurate.