Pictures of You

Content Warning: This section of the guide contains discussion of emotional abuse, suicidal ideation, and death.

Evelyn Hudson Roche is the central protagonist, one of two romantic leads, and one of the two first-person narrators of the novel. When the story opens, Evie is 29, in the hospital, learning she is newly widowed and unable to recall anything of her life past the age of 16. Her journey through the book will entail coming to terms with the choices she made in the past 13 years and acknowledging the feelings she’s long denied.

Evie at 16 is determined to focus on her career and her lofty ambitions. She is fascinated with language and wants to become a forensic linguist, solving crimes by day and writing best-selling thrillers at night. She is determined, intelligent, and disciplined, ready to make the necessary sacrifices to do well in school, graduate from Sydney University, get her PhD, and have a successful, rewarding career.

Romance doesn’t feature in 16-year-old Evie’s life, in part because real men can’t live up to the fantasies she’s woven around her favorite love stories like Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Evie’s favorite hobby is dressing and speaking in the