What I Carry

The determined, responsible, and kind Muiriel is the novel’s protagonist and narrator. When the novel begins, she is 17 years old. She describes herself as “barely five five” (7) and wearing “forgettable jeans and T-shirt, straight brown hair whipping around dark eyes in my nondescript white face” (9). Her appearance helps her avoid attention—a skill she has perfected after spending her whole life in the foster care system because she believes that her “freedom [is] linked always to anonymity” (113). At the start of the novel, Muiriel places high value on The Power of Resilience and Perseverance, determined to gain her freedom by aging out of the foster care system without being adopted. She maintains good grades and works to build up her resume so that she will be in a better position to support herself. Another character trait that Muiriel develops in response to the challenges of her life in the foster care system is responsibility, endearing the meticulously conscientious teenager to her foster parents even though her goal is to protect herself rather than to please others. For example, she describes the foster mother she lived with when she was 11 as “misinterpret[ing] my well-honed survival techniques as affection for her” (162).