Cassandra in Reverse

A 34-year-old wildlife documentary filmmaker, Cassie’s boyfriend (ex-boyfriend in most of the timelines) is enthusiastic about his career and life in general. Cassie describes admiring that “he’s the kind of person who finds something fun to do while the kettle is boiling” (128), and she appreciates that this trait is opposite her own personality. Cassie denigrates his food hygiene habits, like eating food off the floor. Smale represents Will as kind and reasonably understanding of Cassie when she shares aspects of her personality and experience with him.

Will’s function as a character is somewhat unique. He is unable to experience a true narrative arc, given the time-travel component and timeline of the novel. He is characterized primarily through Cassie’s views of him, which are skewed by her love and insistence on holding on to the relationship. While he is accorded complex character traits, he remains fairly static throughout the novel. Through this type of broad, positive characterization through Cassie’s thoughts, Smale advances the narrative structure and element of surprise in Cassandra in Reverse: Readers are led to believe, like Cassie, that Will is a good match for her throughout the majority of the novel. However, when Artemis describes Will to Cassie, she says that he’s amazing, because he is “so sweet, so chilled. So adventurous and thoughtful and hot” (299). Like Artemis, Will ends up functioning as a foil to Cassie in the sense that many of his character traits are converse to hers, and an important aspect of her trajectory as a character is realizing that Will and Artemis are better suited. 

Artemis, Cassie’s younger sister, is a complex character who serves as a foil to Cassie. While it is clear that she has changed during the decade since their parents’ funeral, that change does not take place in the narrative of the novel. Cassie first characterizes Artemis through her reflections on their differences: “[Y]ou live in the gray area. No right, no wrong. No fact, no fiction. No good, no bad. No lies, no truth, no consequences. It’s all just one big blurry mess to you” (229). Artemis is 29, with “nimble, gray-eyed prettiness” (277), and she shares Cassie’s wit and sense of humor. In most other regards, the sisters are completely opposite: Artemis describes herself as suited to being a Sagittarius named Artemis, as she is “the archer, squared. I’m unable to stop traveling and hunting” (287). After they reconnect, Artemis tells Cassie about adventures traveling the world, as well as numerous relationships. She is characterized as emotional and unsettled, as well as laid back.

At the funeral, Artemis hurts Cassie deeply by accusing her of being responsible for their parents’ deaths and of being “a monster,” as well as suggesting that Cassie’s lack of normalcy negatively affected Artemis’s upbringing. While this suggests her emotional temperament and grief, when they reconnect, Artemis tells Cassie that she doesn’t actually resent her, and the sisters realize together that many of the rules with which they grew up came from their mother, who was diagnosed with autism months before her death. Artemis’s effort in attempting to find Cassie to apologize via letter characterizes her as genuine and capable of admitting fault.

While a secondary character, Sophie is an important example of the unique type of character arc present in Cassandra in Reverse, due to its chronology, Cassie’s way of interacting with those around her, and its time-travel component. Sophie does not have an actual arc as a character, as she doesn’t change, but does exhibit the appearance of an arc, as Cassie gradually gets to know and connect with her.

Sophie is introduced early in Cassandra in Reverse, initially characterized by Cassie’s confusion about whether she is being genuine in expressing regret that Cassie has been fired: “I genuinely have no idea if she means this or not […] all I really know about her is that she’s twenty-two years old and likes tuna sandwiches, typing aggressively and picking her nose as if none of us have peripheral vision” (14). Given Cassie’s suggestion that finding her genuine would be a surprise, as well as her seemingly hyperbolic level of upset, it initially seems more likely that Sophie is disingenuous.

As Cassie travels through time, however, Sophie is characterized by her kind, genuine actions. Realizing that Cassie experiences debilitating anxiety when she is required to make phone calls, Sophie offers to do that part of the campaign for her. Not only that, but Sophie also pretends that she particularly wants to make the phone calls herself to advance her career, which causes Cassie to change her thinking on Sophie entirely: “I love her with every cell in my strangely sensitive body […] the way she slams her keyboard with her fingers is perfection” (216). Sophie is also social and adept at making connections, as evidenced by her interactions at the SharkSkin gala. She is smart, having earned a first-class honors degree in mathematics and physics and reports that being underestimated is her superpower: “[N]obody ever sees me coming” (326).

Cassie’s flatmate, Salini (Sal) undergoes the most change in the course of the narrative, after Cassie herself. A secondary character, Sal is initially angry with Cassie due to the misunderstanding about Derek, but they later begin to form a connection. Like Sophie, Sal is initially described only vaguely, but becomes an increasingly complex character as Cassie gets to know her better.

Sal cycles through different pursuits—first attempting cooking, then later deciding to start her own knitwear line. She tells Cassie that she is disappointed that she doesn’t know what to do with her life: “I don’t know what I don’t want. I don’t know what’s supposed to make me happy” (246). Cassie gradually realizes how much she likes Sal, noting that “With a sudden wave of conviction, I realize just how much I like her and have since the first day I moved in” (247). Again, Smale facilitates the gradual reveal of more information about Sal through the time-travel narrative, and Sal is characterized positively through her kind and understanding actions, in offering to let her borrow Cassie’s dress for the gala: “Sal somehow understood what I needed without making me feel weird about it first, and now I think I might be about to cry” (318). Like Sophie, then, Sal has a pseudo character arc as Cassie learns more information about her.

However, Sal also demonstrates growth as a character, which is catalyzed by Cassie telling Sal to trust herself. At the beginning of the novel, Sal and Derek have been together for five years, but when Derek hits on Cassie in the last timeline, instead of believing him, Sal does not hesitate to believe Cassie instead. Once Sal figures out why she is stuck, she demonstrates growth by ending her relationship with Derek.