Content Warning: This section discusses sexual assault of a minor and death of a family member.

Reichl’s depicts Stella’s initial worldview as shaped by her traumatic childhood experiences, which she unpacks and processes over the course of the novel. The novel introduces Stella as timid, cautious, and wary—a self-protective posture toward the world cultivated in an attempt to survive the trauma of her past. Over the course of Reichl’s plot, Stella’s character arc sees her discovering her true passions and talents, finding belonging in a new community that becomes a surrogate family, and embracing her own identity.

Reichl emphasizes Stella’s prolonged sexual abuse by one of her mother’s romantic partners as the primary root of her childhood trauma. When Stella is seven years old, Celia begins dating Mortimer, a rich, elegant art collector. Celia sends Stella to his studio for weekly “art lessons,” during which he repeatedly assaults her. Rather than speaking about it openly, Stella represses her feelings and tells no one about the experience, instead letting resentment and rage toward her mother fester. This experience also instills a great deal of fear and anxiety in her, which manifests in her early interactions with Jules when she gets to Paris. Stella has trained herself to be wary of strange situations and people, particularly men, leading her to lead a simple, high-scheduled, and regimented life in New York.