What Have You Done (Adler and Dwyer, #0.5)

Brad Turner is one antagonist in the novel and a point-of-view character. He is flat, with little known about him other than the fact that he is a gym teacher at Diana’s high school. He is representative of the typical misogynistic predator; he expresses his belief that it is okay for him to look at the teenage girls he teaches, doing so with a “smirk” and threatening them that no one will believe them if they try to turn him in. He also uses his leverage against Principal Kelly, threatening to reveal his secrets if Kelly comes out with the full story of what he did to Diana.

Brad’s character and actions are representative of the theme of The Consequences of Secrets and Deception. He repeatedly thinks throughout the novel how Diana’s death means that everyone will have to believe his story and that there is no one to speak out against him. He repeatedly lies to Ellen and the police about what he did to Diana, and his point of view sections hide the truth—that he went to Diana’s house and forced her to undress while he watched—until the climax of the text when he is finally arrested for his actions. His point-of-view sections also garners little sympathy for him as a character, as he notes that “it was touch and go whether [Ellen] would come to the funeral with him at all, and he’s angry at her for putting him through that” (268). In his arrogance and misogyny, he believes that Ellen should stick by him no matter what—ignoring everything he put her through and only thinking of his reputation in the town. Even after he is arrested, he continues to deny Diana’s story and blames Kelly for telling the police the truth. As such, he is a stereotypical flat villain with no redeeming qualities, and his lies and deception ultimately lead to his downfall.

Paula is a high school English teacher with a daughter, Taylor, in ninth grade. She is a flat character, with little known about her despite her point-of-view sections. She serves as the voice of reason throughout the novel regarding sexual assault allegations. Because she is friends with Principal Kelly, she is privy to information about Diana’s allegation against Brad. Although she does not know the full story, and Kelly is adamant that he handled it, she repeatedly tries to convince him that he needs to come forward and tell the police what he knows. Because she has a daughter, she understands the allegations from the perspective of a woman and a young girl—something that Kelly is lacking. She thinks of how, ever since finding out about Brad’s actions, “she’d been concerned about the possibility that her daughter—and the other students—might be treated inappropriately by their gym teacher” (59-60). Paula has the empathy that many of the characters lack, understanding the complications of sexual assault allegations for the survivors and pushing for justice for Brad’s sexual misconduct toward Diana.

Graham Kelly is the principal at Diana’s school. As a point-of-view character, he is a round and dynamic character who changes throughout the text. He is a character who faces consequences because of his secrets and deception. When he wants to come forward with the truth about Brad, he is stopped because Brad knows that he has been unfaithful to his wife. He then goes through inner turmoil over what he is hiding and outer turmoil in his relationship with his wife and the potential repercussions of his actions at his job.

Despite his initial resistance to coming forward, he goes through a change in the novel due to Paula’s actions. After Paula gives her perspective on Diana’s accusations and more survivors come forward, Kelly recognizes not only that he has a duty as principal to protect his students but also that he has morally failed. He notes how “he wishes he were a different kind of man. A man of action, or at least a man who confronts things head-on and tries to put them right” (249). He applies these thoughts to both his marriage, where he had an affair instead of talking with his wife to solve their marital problems, and his job, where he avoided reporting Brad and brushed it aside. Ultimately, however, he gains redemption in the novel, as he finally comes forward and tells the full story to the police, allowing Brad to be punished for his actions.

Diana is one of the two first-person point-of-view characters in the text. Her death is the inciting action of the novel, with the attempt to solve it as the central plot. Many characters describe her as being well-liked, popular, and pretty, with many people not able to believe that anyone would want to harm her. As a ghost, she stays with her mother, attempting to comfort her while also trying to remember the events that led to her death.

Diana serves largely as a plot device in the novel. She is a flat character, with little known about her throughout the text. Her point-of-view sections largely serve to examine the events of the novel as she struggles to remember what happened to her. She also misleads the reader, as she first becomes convinced that Brad killed her—just as the police do—but then only realizes after Riley that Evan is her actual murderer. Her examinations of the characters in the novel develop the theme of The Impact of Tragedy on Communities. She sees her mother devastated by her death and unable to resume her normal life, as well as her friend Riley grappling with her grief. She also witnesses each of the police interviews, seeing how her death leads to the revelation of their lies and deceptions and, in Cameron’s case, his attempts to grieve marred by the police investigation and his lies.

Despite her limited perspective and character traits, Diana is a dynamic character who changes in the text. Initially, she is fixated on finding out who killed her to get revenge. When she thinks that it is Brad, she is enraged and decides that she is going to “haunt” him (274). However, when the truth about Evan is revealed, she decides that she is willing to let her anger go and allow him to be punished by his arrest, ultimately accepting her death and moving on.

Cameron is Diana’s boyfriend in the novel. He is described as athletic, popular, and good-looking. However, he is also possessive of Diana, something that Riley and Evan notice as the relationship between Diana and Cameron grows. He is prone to anger, as he beat up a classmate who was bullying him when he was younger. His decisions to lie throughout the novel contribute to the theme of The Consequences of Secrets and Deception. Instead of being honest with the police and arguing for his innocence, he decides to lie at several points, making his situation worse and positioning himself as one of the key suspects in Diana’s death.

Cameron is presented throughout much of the novel as an antagonist and potential suspect. His lies, anger, and the fact that Diana broke up with him the night of his death all lead his parents and the police to believe that he is capable of killing Diana. His deception sets up a moral dilemma for his parents, who believe he is hiding evidence from the police and attempt to destroy it for him. Ultimately, however, he is a red herring, serving to distract from the true murderer.

Evan is one of Diana’s best friends in the novel. Although he is one of only two characters with a first-person point of view, he is a flat character with little known about him in the novel. Much of what is known—his grief over Diana, his belief that Cameron was prone to anger and possessiveness, and his desire to help Brenda and Riley find Diana’s killer—is revealed to be a lie in the final moments of the text. Shari Lapena reveals Evan, as Diana’s murderer, to be an unreliable narrator who intentionally deceives those around him.

Evan also serves as a metafictional commentary on the writing process. Each of his point-of-view chapters is his writing, first as a journal entry and then developing into a desire to write a “novel” about Diana’s death (143). As he sits in the interview room at the text’s conclusion, he comments on how his entries served as an exercise in “play[ing] with the truth,” which is “what writers do” (306). Evan’s character represents the way that authors draw on real-world themes, people, and ideas—while creating fictional worlds and actions—to convey truths they see in the world.