January Andrew’s character consists of two parts: the person she has always been and the person she is at the beginning of the book. January is a hopeless romantic. She loves love to the point where she’s made a successful career out of writing romance novels. She believes in the power of love to heal and lift people up. She is an optimist at heart, forever finding the good in the world. Her upbringing with her mother’s cancer and her father’s spontaneous and attentive response to the diagnosis has shaped her into someone who believes love is the ultimate cure for dark times.

However, January at the beginning of the novel is not this January. She tells Gus, “...I’m not a fairy princess anymore” (74). Her picture-perfect life with her perfect loving parents and perfect boyfriend has crumbled. January is filled with resentment for her father. The revelation of his affair, along with January's breakup with her ex, has broken her belief in everlasting love. The happily-ever-afters that she has effortlessly written for years now evade her, both in real life and in her writing.

January searches for the familiar feelings of love as the novel progresses.