Shannon McFarland is the first person narrator of the novel, often referred to by the aliases “Daisy St. Patience” and “Bubba Joan.” Once a model by profession, Shannon experiences a crisis of identity after she intentionally injures herself with a rifle and loses portions of her lower jaw. The resulting loss of her fiancé, her career, and her best friend prove to be more difficult than she expects, and Shannon feels isolated from her support systems as she attempts to reconstruct her sense of self. After Shannon and Brandy Alexander become quick friends in the speech therapist’s office, Brandy teaches Shannon how to wear a veil and convinces her that she can recreate herself entirely. Shannon embraces this idea out of her desire for more agency over the way that others perceive her. When Shannon learns that Brandy and her supposedly deceased brother Shane are the same person, Shannon plots revenger against Brandy, her ex-friend, and her former fiancé, believing that they have all deceived her. Throughout the novel, Shannon attempts to reconcile her destructive impulses with her desire for a new life completely free of association with her previous identity.

Shannon’s self-destructive impulses are motivated by her desire to escape the assumptions others make about her because of her conventional beauty.