The Ex

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of suicide.

Cassie is the protagonist of The Ex and the narrator of the “The New Girl” chapters of the novel. She is 26 years old and is described as “sweet, earnest, and pretty in a fresh-faced sort of way” (312). She is characterized by her anxious nature, which manifests in worries about money, her relationship with Joel, and the possibility of being arrested by police.

As the owner of a failing bookstore, Cassie repeatedly expresses anxiety about her finances. She refuses to close the bookstore early for her first date with Joel in the hopes that she’ll have customers, as “she needs the money desperately if there’s any chance of the store not going under” (43). The use of the word desperate in this passage reflects Cassie’s emotional distress regarding her finances. When Joel suggests sushi for their date, Cassie worries that “she can’t afford a sushi dinner. She can barely afford ramen noodles” (47). This anxiety about money appears again later when Cassie prepares to go out to dinner with Joel’s friends Pete and Lydia, and Cassie’s “heart skips a beat when she sees the prices” (231) on the online menu.