The 28-year-old protagonist Ricki is the youngest member of a family that owns a national funeral home chain founded in 1932. Seen by her family as a zany and eccentric “Unserious Person,” Ricki resembles them only in the face, “which was a carbon copy of those of her socialite sisters, Rashida, Regina, and Rae” (11). Ricki’s vintage style is judged by her siblings, who don’t understand wearing used clothes when the family is wealthy. Her family belittles her constantly not only for her style and awkward social manner, but also for her professional failures: Ricki doesn’t have an Ivy League business degree like her sisters nor has she opened her own franchises of funeral homes to obtain her weighty trust fund. Ricki has “never followed the plan set out for her” (14); though she desperately wishes to please her family—especially her father—she also refuses to throw away her dreams of owning a flower shop despite their disapproval.

Fearing that others will judge her as her own family has, Ricki does not have close friends, because she’s “too scared to drop her guard” (15); she dates “hot, shallow guys who weren’t super concerned with who she was, beyond being a pretty Wilde” (15), but finds committed long-term relationships a struggle and has broken three engagements.