You Are Not Alone

“Jane rushes into Cassandra’s office. It is a busy morning at Moore Public Relations, their boutique firm on Sullivan Street.”

Jane and Cassandra run their firm with an assertive competence and a keen attention to detail. Their specialization in “public relations” hints at The Dangers of Manipulation and Revenge that they represent: Just as PR is about crafting certain narratives to gain advantages, so too do Jane and Cassandra use manipulation and deceit in their own vengeance schemes.

“Logically, I know that I’m not going to see another suicide, but the one that I did see keeps replaying in my mind.”

Shay is a numbers person, and she tries to comfort herself by focusing on the fact that it is statistically unlikely that she will witness a second death by suicide. Still, the event haunts her, and she struggles to manage her feelings of sadness and anxiety. Her deteriorating emotional state leaves her more vulnerable than ever to manipulation, exacerbating her Loneliness and the Need for Connection.

“Cassandra removes her hand, but I still feel the heat of its imprint on my bare forearm. It’s no longer about the connection I feel with Amanda, it’s about the connection I want to feel with her friends.”

Cassandra and Jane use The Dangers of Manipulation and Revenge to draw women into their circle, and Shay easily falls into their trap. They are also adept at finding women who are lonely and taking advantage of their desire for connection. The imprint of Cassandra’s hand on Shay’s forearm symbolizes both the sisters’ ability to charm people and the ease with which Shay falls under their spell.

“Cassandra and Jane learn two things about Shay during their brief encounter with her. She is a bad liar. Her cheeks flushed and she avoided eye contact when she fabricated the story about the veterinarian. And she has a strange and alarming attachment to Amanda.”

Cassandra and Jane are highly intelligent women, and they use this intelligence to further their own interests and manipulate those around them. Although the full truth of their group’s activities has not been revealed yet, it is already evident that the two are masterful thinkers and acute observers of people.

“Cassandra’s words echo through my mind: connecting with each other is one of the most essential things we can do.”

Shay is a profoundly lonely individual, and Loneliness and the Need for Connection form an important part of her characterization at the beginning of the novel. She fixates on Amanda because she has so few personal connections of her own, and she is drawn to Cassandra and Jane because she feels a deep need to establish a meaningful relationship with someone, anyone else.

“Stacey had lost one family, but found another.”

Cassandra and Jane use connectivity and the promise of belonging to manipulate, rather than threats and aggression. They draw women into their circle by helping them solve their problems, and then providing them with the community that their lives are lacking. They select women for their circle in part based on their loneliness. Stacey and Shay are markedly different characters, but they share a sense of Loneliness and the Need for Connection.

“I pick up the bouquet of Zinnias that I’ve been keeping fresh with a damp paper towel wrapped around the stems. By now I associate the flowers so strongly with Amanda.”

Zinnias are one of this novel’s motifs. Shay brings a yellow zinnia to Amanda’s door after she witnesses her death by suicide, and zinnias make frequent appearances in the narrative after that. They represent Shay’s obsession with Amanda, but also her deep feelings of isolation and loneliness: If Shay had a better network of friends and acquaintances, she would not be so fixated on a woman she never actually met.

“The Moore women don’t waste time. I mentioned a tough living situation and they found me a temporary apartment. Now, they’re tackling my phobia.”

Cassandra and Jane are eerily able to guess and meet Shay’s needs. This is in part because they are spying on her, but also because they are both highly manipulative. Their technique is to create an emotional bond and a sense of indebtedness. Shay depends on the Moore sisters to solve her problems for her because she does not realize she is strong and capable enough to solve her problems herself: Since she does not recognize The Importance of Self-Esteem, she fails to see that she’s being manipulated, not helped.

“Stacey’s formidable streak of loyalty runs deeper for the sisters than for anyone else.”

Cassandra and Jane command loyalty from the women in their group because they go to great lengths to solve these women’s problems. Additionally, the “justice” that they offer to people who have been denied justice by various legal channels becomes a key aspect of the sisters’ relationship with them. Stacey feels that no one has ever helped her out as much as Cassandra and Jane, and because of that she becomes fiercely dedicated to them.

“Shay is highly inquisitive and overly analytical. Her curiosity and determination to make sense out of seemingly disparate facts are dangerous.”

Shay’s intelligence, memory, and head for figures are part of what makes her such a strong protagonist even though she perceives herself as weak and unattractive. In spite of the ease with which the sisters manipulate her, there are periodic hints in the narrative that Shay is much more insightful than she might seem.

“The Moore sisters knew their dear friend Amanda didn’t have a cat. So they must have known I was lying all along.”

Appearances are deceiving in this novel. Shay does not immediately understand the sisters’ true nature, because they are so adept at pretending to be kind and thoughtful, but there are details that help her to uncover their true nature peppered throughout the narrative. Here, Shay realizes that they knew much more about her than she thought, and the fact that they allowed her to lie becomes a sign that they are hiding something from her.

“It could prove invaluable later to have public evidence of Shay’s unrelenting desire to replicate elements of Amanda’s life.”

At this point in the novel, the sisters are subtly manipulating Shay, but Shay is not yet aware of their duplicity. They remain worried about the exact nature of her connection to Amanda and want to make it seem as though Shay is obsessed with Amanda. Their careful plotting is a further reflection of The Dangers of Manipulation and Revenge.

“The hours flew by as I lost myself compiling each brand’s characteristics and market share.”

Shay’s character arc explores The Importance of Self-Esteem. Shay perceives herself as unlikeable and unattractive, but she is talented at data analysis. A big part of her character growth will be how she learns to recognize that her talents and strengths are valuable, with her data skills becoming particularly useful in uncovering the Moore sisters’ schemes.

“Beth is a little frazzled tonight, but that’s typical. Her job keeps her scrambling, but otherwise she seems upbeat.”

Moments like these help to round out Beth’s character. A public defender, she is overworked and often busy and tired. Nevertheless, she takes pride in her work and values her job, as hinted in the use of the adjective “upbeat,” which suggests her optimistic character. While Beth’s status as a public defender ties her to the official justice system, her involvement in the circle speaks to the blurring between vigilante vengeance and justice in the novel.

“As for Shay, she must be sacrificed. She will be a necessary, but unfortunate casualty.”

Cassandra, Jane, and Valerie are all perfectly willing to murder Shay to safeguard their secrets. This willingness to kill an innocent woman showcases their complete lack of ethics and The Dangers of Manipulation and Revenge: While the sisterly trio originally started out wanting to punish abusers who escaped the law, they are now dragging innocent people like Shay down with them.

“The stealth campaign they launched against Ashley was one of the most successful the Moore sisters ever conducted.”

Cassandra and Jane’s PR plot against Ashley, Valerie’s rival in acting, launches the sisters’ circle of scheming and vengeance. Their success in tearing down Ashley speaks to The Dangers of Manipulation and Revenge in the novel, with their PR skills embodying their ability to craft narratives and images that serve their own private ends instead of the truth.

“I wonder if they’ve become inured to their reflections in the mirror or if they still appreciate how dazzling they are. But I feel good too. It’s like their dazzle is contagious.”

Cassandra and Jane are both beautiful, with their chic clothes and elegance speaking to the novel’s fashion and appearance motif (See: Symbols & Motifs). They use their charisma to charm women like Shay, with their makeover of Shay leaving Shay feeling as though she shares in their “dazzle.” Shay does not realize that appearance is yet another part of the sisters’ manipulation, and her eagerness to let someone else choose her appearance for her implies that she still has not learned The Importance of Self-Esteem.

“They were supposed to punish James, not kill him.”

Amanda differs from the other women in the circle in that she lacks ruthlessness and feels remorse. Since she is a nurse, she was trained to “do no harm” and feels traumatized by her role in James’s death. To Cassandra and Jane, this amounts to a character flaw: They are able to mete out their brand of vigilante justice without a second thought, while Amanda, because she does feel guilt and shame, appears weak to them.

“Beth wasn’t an ally. Beth wanted to get her in line.”

Here, Amanda realizes that the group is defined not by friendship but through manipulation. She understands for the first time that she was selected by Cassandra and Jane not because of her positive qualities but because they thought they could control her. Beth now wants to bring Amanda “in line” so that she does not go to the police, reflecting The Dangers of Manipulation and Revenge.

“Valerie must be more than just a casual friend of Cassandra and Jane’s, like they portrayed her. She’s not just a part of this. She’s at the epicenter of whatever it is.”

In this scene, Shay begins to unravel the various pieces of the mystery surrounding Amanda and the Moore sisters. Although a key part of the novel’s plot and suspense structure, this moment reveals much about Shay as a character and speaks to the novel’s thematic interest in self-worth and self-esteem. Shay perceives herself as an unworthy, uninteresting person, but she is actually intelligent with a keen eye for numbers, patterns, and data.

“I’ve filled pages of my new data book with my memories of Cassandra and Jane.”

Shay uses both her research skills and her own sharp memory to uncover the truth about Cassandra and Jane. In this passage, she once again mentions her data book, an important symbol in the text that embodies Shay’s personal talents and strengths (See: Symbols & Motifs). The data she collects on Cassandra and Jane will help her uncover their scheme to frame her.

“Perhaps they should not wait for the police to act, Valerie thinks. Perhaps they should make Shay disappear permanently.”

Valerie is one of the most ruthless characters in the novel. Although Cassandra and Jane are the group’s leaders, much of its dirty work is assigned to Valerie. She shows no remorse in resorting to murder to achieve the group’s goals, which reinforces how in the midst of The Dangers of Manipulation and Revenge, the line between justice and revenge has been all but erased.

“If her mother would just take a good look at her instead of fussing over the salad she was preparing for her new husband she’d notice what had to be written all over Valerie’s face: ‘He hurt me.’”

Figures who aid and abet abusers and criminals abound in this novel. Here, Valerie’s own mother refuses to believe that her daughter was victimized by her husband’s son. Valerie’s desire to punish abusers is rooted in this moment, and both she and her sisters are easily able to find women for their circle who have been similarly victimized. Thus, while Valerie is originally motivated by a true sense of injustice, her original aims soon become corrupted by her vigilantism.