CHARACTER
Flippedby Wendelin Van Draanen

Garrett Anderson

Garrett Anderson

Quick Facts

  • Role: Best friend to Bryce Loski; a foil who embodies the peer-pressure mindset Bryce must outgrow
  • First major appearance: Fifth grade “Shelly Stalls plan,” when he backs Bryce’s scheme to dodge Juli
  • Key relationships: Bryce (enabler-turned-antagonist), Juli Baker (object of his mockery), Shelly Stalls (pawn in a social ploy)
  • Physical description: None given; Garrett is defined by his dialogue, decisions, and how others perceive him
  • Thematic function: A living obstacle to Bryce’s coming-of-age and personal growth

Who He Is

Bold, chatty, and careless, Garrett acts as the chorus of junior high: he voices the easy joke, the mean assumption, and the priority list of popularity over empathy. He doesn’t evolve; that stasis is the point. By insisting on a shallow, social-climbing worldview, he becomes the ruler against which Bryce’s maturation is measured. When Bryce starts seeing Juli as a person rather than a problem, Garrett doesn’t come along—he pushes back—making Garrett less a friend than a pressure system Bryce must learn to resist.

Personality & Traits

Garrett’s surface-level judgments and pack-mentality instincts create momentary laughs and long-term damage. He fills silences with certainty he hasn’t earned and treats people as props in a social game, which exposes how fragile Bryce’s early values are—and how hard it is to change them.

  • Superficial and judgmental: He urges Bryce to date Shelly Stalls because she’s “nice” and has “a lot of hair”, reducing girls to status accessories. Later, he makes an ableist joke about Juli’s uncle, revealing a value system that prizes cool points over compassion.
  • Immature: He’s eager to spy on the Bakers, lob rocks at their chicken coop, and trade in gossip. When Bryce’s feelings for Juli shift, Garrett answers with mockery, not curiosity or care.
  • Unreliable friend: Bryce notes that Garrett’s “code of honor is easily corrupted by weepy females,” which is why he spills the Shelly scheme. His loyalty is a weather vane; once Bryce threatens the social order, Garrett drops him.
  • A follower with loud opinions: He confidently declares the Bakers’ birds “definitely all chickens,” only for Bryce’s dad to expose their ignorance. Garrett’s certainty masks shallow thinking—and drags Bryce into avoidable embarrassment.

Character Journey

Garrett doesn’t have an arc; he is the arc’s resistance. Early on, he validates Bryce’s avoidance of Juli, giving Bryce cover for cowardice. As Bryce begins re-evaluating Juli—and himself—Garrett’s jokes turn from harmless-seeming to corrosive. The turning point arrives in the library, when Garrett mocks Juli’s uncle; Bryce hears the ugliness in a way he didn’t before. By the Basket Boy auction, Garrett is the final tether to the “old Bryce.” When he severs the friendship, it’s less a loss than a rite of passage: Bryce can’t step forward while still orbiting Garrett’s approval.

Key Relationships

Bryce Loski: Garrett starts as Bryce’s echo chamber—cheering on schemes, ridiculing Juli, and reinforcing quick judgments. As Bryce, encouraged by his grandfather Chet Duncan, begins valuing kindness over coolness, Garrett can’t—or won’t—adjust. Their split crystallizes the cost of growth: Bryce must trade social safety for integrity.

Juli Baker: Garrett never engages with Juli as a person; he treats her as a punchline or problem to be solved. His cruel joke about her uncle exposes the dehumanizing logic of his worldview and becomes the moment Bryce recognizes just how far he’s moved beyond Garrett.

Shelly Stalls: To Garrett, Shelly is social currency—useful for a scheme, dispensable when the plan backfires. He’s “totally behind” Bryce’s ruse until Shelly cries; then he flips, tells her the truth, and leaves Bryce exposed, proving his loyalty is performative.

Defining Moments

Garrett’s scenes track the pressure Bryce must reject, each one tightening the screws until Bryce breaks the pattern.

  • The Shelly Stalls plan (fifth grade): Garrett backs the fake-dating plot to shake Juli, then caves to Shelly’s tears and reveals everything. Why it matters: It spotlights Garrett’s unreliable loyalty and shows how his shallow calculus harms others.
  • Backyard stakeout and the chicken fiasco: Garrett confidently misidentifies the Bakers’ birds, only for Rick Loski to reveal their ignorance. Why it matters: Garrett’s swagger without substance humiliates Bryce and hints that following Garrett leads nowhere good.
  • The library confrontation: After Bryce shares Juli’s family situation, Garrett jokes about her uncle. Why it matters: Bryce’s disgust marks a moral awakening; Garrett’s casual cruelty becomes intolerable rather than entertaining.
  • The post–Basket Boy breakup: Garrett blocks Bryce, calls him a “social hazard,” and ends the friendship. Why it matters: This public severing symbolizes Bryce’s final step away from peer approval toward authentic choice.

Essential Quotes

Garrett gives me a real chumpy grin and says, “A retard? Well, that explains a lot, doesn’t it?”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “What?”
“You know,” he says, still grinning, “about Juli.”

This is the moral line Bryce won’t cross. Garrett’s demeaning joke collapses complex family pain into a status jab, exposing how his humor depends on dehumanizing others—and showing Bryce that staying friends means accepting that value system.

“Dude, you have flipped, you know that?”
“Just back off, would you?”
He blocked my path. “I can’t believe this! Two hours ago you were the man. The man! The whole school was on their knees before you! Now look at you. You’re, like, a social hazard.” He snorted and said, “And, dude, the truth is, if you’re gonna be like this, I don’t need the association.”

Garrett speaks for the hallway jury: popularity first, empathy last. Calling Bryce a “social hazard” turns compassion into contamination, making the friendship’s end feel inevitable once Bryce chooses substance over status.

Bryce says Garrett’s “code of honor is easily corrupted by weepy females.”

What sounds like a quip is actually a diagnosis of Garrett’s character: loyalty as performance, empathy as leverage, and the truth as a bargaining chip. The line explains both the failed Shelly scheme and why Garrett abandons Bryce when the social winds shift.