Hide

Content Warning: This section discusses murder and death, trauma and PTSD, and a cult.

Mack is the protagonist of the novel. She enters the competition because she is living in a shelter for unhoused people and has nowhere else to go. She is a young woman who was deeply traumatized when her father killed the rest of her family and almost killed Mack herself. Because of this experience, she wants nothing more than to be invisible. She now finds it traumatic to be perceived by others and simply cannot “think, not while she’s being looked at. Not while she’s being seen” (7). Part of her desire to be “unseen” arises from her guilt over her sister’s violent death. When their unstable father told them to hide, Mack took her younger sister, Maddie, to her favorite hiding spot, and as a result, Maddie was easily found and killed. Mack therefore perceives herself as unreliable and believes that she is a bad person who will inevitably abandon others. However, she grows considerably during her ordeal at Amazement Park and finally comes to terms with her past.

Mack’s physical description echoes her intense desire to remain invisible.