The Favorite Girl

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, death, death by suicide, self-harm, mental illness, rape, sexual violence, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and gender discrimination.

The narrator of The Favorite Girl is 19-year-old Demi. She was born in India and moved to Tennessee after her parents sold her and her sister, Layla, to a human trafficker named Trent. Layla’s nickname for Demi was “Demilion” because Layla “made wishes on dandelions every single day, hoping for a baby sister, and then, just like that, [Demi] eventually came along” (210). After a severe beating from Trent, Layla asked Demi to kill her. Demi did so, reluctantly, and hallucinated Layla afterward. This trauma causes Demi to struggle with panic attacks and self-harm. At the beginning of the novel, Demi is unhoused but able to temporarily stay at a cheap motel in Charlotte, North Carolina. Without a home address or identification, Demi can only apply for nanny and housekeeper jobs. She thinks, “I’d rather scrub toilets and potentially splash bleach in my eyes than have to care for young children” (11). Demi’s dislike of children foreshadows how the Ivory family is going to control her reproduction. Her poverty and mental illness leave her vulnerable to the Ivory family’s manipulations.