Things We Do in the Dark

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses child abuse, sexual assault, and murder.

Joey Reyes morphs into Paris Aquino and then morphs into Paris Peralta. By having her protagonist shaping and shucking identities, Hillier reveals the traumatic impact of abuse. Joey “was not okay. Not even a little bit […] this was her life, because it had always been her life, and it would either kill her, or she would survive it” (288). Joey Reyes learned early at the hands of adults that beauty is a commodity, violence is a strategy for survival, trust is a weakness, and love is a painful and pointless fantasy. Joey is abused by her mother, whose own mother taught her early on the same lessons; she is then sexually abused by her mother’s wealthy boyfriend and then by her own uncle. Joey grows into adulthood seeing herself as others saw her: as an object to be used and abandoned. She understands only the strategy of survival, dispensing with empathy or emotions as risks. Love, as she tells Drew, “is just your way of manipulating me into letting my guard down” (303). Her character arc hence revolves around overcoming the impact of her abuse and learning how to love.