Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of substance use, sexual content, death, mental illness, and disordered eating.

When Catalina was admitted to Harvard, one of her high school teachers warned her to approach the experience “with humility.” She followed this advice for the first three years, keeping her “dignity intact” by cultivating a polite “invisibility.” Now, however, Catalina wants “to accept [her] razzle-dazzle coming-of-age at the most famous school in the world” (40).

Catalina generally struggled to make friends at Harvard, but she quickly became close with Delphine Rodriguez, a Puerto Rican girl from Texas who is studying pre-medicine. The Latine students at Harvard usually make Catalina feel “self-conscious”; she imagines that they share all of the same pains and struggles, but Delphine is different. Her mother also died when she was young, and she and Catalina have matching tattoos, belly button piercings, and necklaces. However, their relationship is also turbulent and full of arguments. In one instance, Delphine, who is also a Jehovah’s Witness, decided to stick to the Witness’s policy of neutrality by not voting in the 2008 presidential election. Catalina, for whom voting was not an option, took Delphine’s decision to sit out personally and attempted unsuccessfully to change her friend’s mind.