Alyssa Morrow

Quick Facts

• Role: Sixteen-year-old protagonist of Dry; a suburban junior whose life is reshaped by the “Tap-Out”
• First appearance: Chapter 1 (the Costco run)
• Family: Older sister to Garrett Morrow; daughter in a tight-knit, middle-class household
• Key relationships: Neighbor-ally Kelton McCracken; foil-turned-comrade Jacqui Costa; charismatic betrayer Henry
• Setting: Orange County suburbs during a statewide water catastrophe

Who They Are

At heart, Alyssa Morrow is an ordinary, conscientious teenager whose sense of normalcy—AP papers, soccer practice, family dinners—collides with an invisible disaster. The authors keep her physicality understated, letting her self-consciousness do the work: flipping through family photos, she hates her “hair…smile…clothes” (Chapter 3), a small, human detail that makes the later grit and blood of survival feel all the more shocking. As the Tap-Out deepens, Alyssa’s identity telescopes from “good kid” to reluctant commander. Her core—protective, fair, practical—doesn’t vanish; it hardens, then fractures, then reforges around a single imperative: keep Garrett alive.

Personality & Traits

Alyssa’s morality is instinctive and sincere, yet she is relentlessly pragmatic when circumstances demand it. The book tests her idea of “goodness” until she recognizes that doing right in a collapsing world can look monstrous from the outside—and sometimes from the inside, too.

• Responsible, protective leader: When her parents go missing, she immediately assumes guardianship over Garrett—planning, rationing, and taking the risks herself. Her willingness to face down mobs and, later, to attempt a mercy killing in the fire shows the extreme lengths her responsibility reaches (Chapter 55).
• Pragmatic and resourceful: She proposes “rolling blackouts” for water on Day 1, thinking in policy terms even as a teenager. At Costco, with shelves stripped bare, she buys ice to melt, creating a temporary buffer for her family (Chapter 1).
• Empathetic with boundaries: She shares at soccer practice and steps in to defend an older man on the beach, confronting Dalton (Chapter 9). Yet in the forest she chooses Garrett over a stranger’s life (Chapter 48), revealing the border where her compassion yields to triage.
• Adaptable judgment: She revises her snap judgments—especially about Kelton, from “creepy prepper” to crucial partner—and learns to read true motives after Henry’s betrayal.
• Clear-headed under pressure: Whether navigating riots, negotiating with strangers, or loading a gun as flames close in, she keeps moving through fear, making decisions others can’t or won’t.

Character Journey

Alyssa’s arc pivots on a bitter irony: she sets out to write a paper on Lord of the Flies and ends up trapped inside its experiment. What begins as a manageable inconvenience becomes existential once her parents disappear, and every step toward Laguna Beach lowers her into the underworld of Survival and Desperation. The desalination-plant riot and her clash with Dalton collapse her faith in the social contract; meeting Jacqui forces new rules for a lawless world. Alyssa’s nadir arrives in the forest: dehydrated, strapped to a dying brother, she steals water from a helpless woman and names herself a “monster” for it—then prepares to kill Garrett and herself rather than let the fire take them. That sequence marks her moral crucible. The eventual rescue and family reunion don’t undo what she’s learned; they certify it. By the end, she isn’t pure or unbroken, but she is honest about what love costs and what survival demands.

Key Relationships

• Garrett Morrow: Alyssa’s bond with Garrett is the axis of her choices. His vulnerability transforms her from big sister to de facto parent, and his life becomes the metric by which she evaluates every moral line—from confronting bullies to stealing a stranger’s last water. The threat of losing him drives her to the edge of self-annihilation in the fire, making their survival as much a moral reprieve as a physical one.
• Kelton McCracken: Initially the “creepy dude next door,” Kelton’s preparedness and loyalty dovetail with Alyssa’s leadership. He offers gear and knowledge; she offers judgment and ethical ballast. Their rapport shifts from wary necessity to mutual reliance, with a tender, unspoken affection forged in shared near-deaths.
• Jacqui Costa: Jacqui’s street-hardened realism punctures Alyssa’s early idealism. They clash, but Jacqui’s bluntness keeps the group alive, and Alyssa’s steadiness prevents Jacqui’s cynicism from becoming cruelty. Their grudging respect forms a functional yin-yang: ruthless pragmatism checked by conscience.
• Henry: Charming and useful until he isn’t, Henry embodies opportunism unmoored from principle. Alyssa’s misread of him—followed by his betrayal—sharpens her discernment. He teaches her the price of misplacing trust when rules evaporate.

Defining Moments

Alyssa’s story is a sequence of thresholds—each one closing a door on the person she was and opening another onto the survivor she becomes.

• The Costco Run (Chapter 1): With water gone, Alyssa buys bags of ice. Why it matters: It shows her systems-thinking and calm improvisation—survival requires noticing what others overlook.
• The Poisoned Water (Chapter 5): Garrett accidentally ruins the family’s supply. Why it matters: The loss forces Alyssa out of passivity; waiting is no longer an option, leadership is.
• The Beach Confrontation (Chapter 9): She faces down Dalton amid riot fallout. Why it matters: Her instinct for justice collides with mob logic, ending her trust in “civilized” crowds and introducing Jacqui’s hard truths.
• Stealing the Water (Chapter 48): In the forest, she takes a dying woman’s last drink for Garrett. Why it matters: This is Alyssa’s moral inversion point—choosing her brother over a stranger’s life and accepting the label “monster” to live with the choice.
• The Mercy Killing Attempt (Chapter 55): Trapped by fire, she prepares to shoot Garrett and herself. Why it matters: Love radicalized into terrible mercy; she assumes ultimate responsibility when the world refuses to.
• The Reunion (Chapter 56): She finds her parents alive. Why it matters: Emotional release and narrative closure—but not erasure. She returns changed, carrying knowledge the old world didn’t require.

Themes & Symbolism

Alyssa refracts the novel’s study of Human Nature: Civility vs. Savagery. Her Lord of the Flies essay becomes a living thesis test: good intentions buckle under scarcity, and “civilized” choices acquire feral edges. The grime coating her—dust, sweat, and others’ blood—externalizes the erosion of social veneers. By the end, she isn’t a fallen angel or a hardened villain; she’s evidence that ordinary people can be both rescuers and threats, sometimes in the same breath.

Essential Quotes

Someone should sue to get them to release a fraction of it. Make it like rolling blackouts. Each neighborhood gets a little bit of water each day.
Analysis: Alyssa’s instinct is structural, not sentimental; she reaches for policy in a vacuum of leadership. It’s an early snapshot of her clarity under stress and her faith—soon to be shaken—that institutions can be nudged into fairness.

There’s no radar image for a water crisis. No storm surges, no debris fields – the Tap-Out is as silent as cancer.
Analysis: The metaphor reframes disaster as stealthy and internal, aligning with how Alyssa’s moral compromises creep up on her. The “silent” crisis also explains why crowds react late and badly—panic blooms when visible cues are gone.

"You’re monsters!" I yell, and the blue-eyed kid goes feral on me. "Monsters? We’re monsters? You don’t know me!" "I know all I need to know! You’re beating on some poor defenseless man!"
Analysis: This confrontation captures Alyssa’s early moral absolutism—violence equals monstrosity, full stop. The scene foreshadows her later realization that context (scarcity, fear) scrambles moral categories and that she, too, can cross lines.

If she has to die for my brother to live, then I will take her water and leave her to die. Henry was right. Sometimes it’s the monsters who survive. And now I am the monster.
Analysis: Here, Alyssa articulates the book’s bleak center: survival may demand acts that feel unforgivable. Naming herself a “monster” doesn’t absolve her; it acknowledges the cost of loving someone enough to become what you hate.

We’re old friends who’ve known each other for, like, a hundred years... It’s just that ninety-five of them happened in one week.
Analysis: Time dilates under catastrophe; shared ordeal accelerates intimacy and trust. Alyssa recognizes that bonds forged in extremis can be deeper than years of ordinary acquaintance, redefining what family and friendship mean after the Tap-Out.