Punk 57

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of bullying, sexual content, sexual harassment, and death.

Ryen Trevarrow is one of the main protagonists of the novel and one of the two alternating narrative perspectives. Ryen’s character goes through the most growth in the novel as she learns to let go of the insecurities that drive her to maintain a callous persona to fit in at her high school. At the beginning of the novel, Ryen is a cheerleader and a mean girl. She can barely stand her best friend, Lyla, and she has no interest in the popular jock, Trey, trying to pursue a sexual relationship with her. Ryen keeps many things hidden from her friend group, like her love of art class, her inhaler for asthma, and the walls of her room, which are covered in words and lyrics that Ryen and Misha wrote to one another. Ryen feels “you don’t need to reveal everything inside you to the people around you. They like to judge, and I’m happier when they don’t. Some things stay hidden” (28).

Ryen’s concerns about her friends’ judgment stem from her childhood, when she was the outcast girl who wanted desperately to fit in with the popular group but only got ridiculed by them instead, and shows