Caroline Lushamp

Quick Facts

• Role: Queen bee antagonist; squad captain of the Martin Van Buren High Damsels
• First appearance: Introduced early as Jack Masselin’s on-again/off-again girlfriend; first major scene is the cafeteria confrontation after Libby punches Jack
• Key relationships: Jack Masselin (tumultuous romance), Libby Strout (primary target/foil), Kendra Wu (ally and echo chamber)
• Signature: Meticulous appearance, social savvy, cutting charm masking insecurity
• Theme connection: Embodies the danger of judging by surfaces and the cost of self-reinvention tied to status, central to Seeing Beyond Appearances

Who They Are

Caroline Lushamp is the school’s reigning tastemaker—gorgeous, poised, and feared. She has remade herself from a “geeky and sweet” outcast into the Damsels’ captain and the girl everyone watches. But her authority relies on surfaces: cultivated beauty, social power, and a brittle certainty about who’s in and who’s out. As Libby steps into the public eye, Caroline becomes the novel’s clearest embodiment of the impulse to measure people by their bodies and reputations. She’s a necessary foil: while Libby learns to live openly and authentically, Caroline’s identity remains a performance, one that ultimately isolates her.

Personality & Traits

Caroline’s confidence is choreographed. She polices appearances—her own and others’—to keep control, but that control is defensive. Moments of unguarded vulnerability show a girl afraid of being unwanted, which makes her meanness feel less like malice for its own sake and more like armor.

• Superficial and judgmental: Reduces Libby to “the girl who was trapped in her house,” and offers “pity compliments” like, “You look really pretty,” as if beauty were the only admissible value.
• Cruel under polish: Mocks Libby with Kendra in the gym and weaponizes the Damsels audition to shame her, fixating on weight rather than skill or spirit.
• Controlling in relationships: Warns Jack, “If you walk away, Jack, don’t come back,” drawing hard boundaries to preserve status and possession.
• Insecure and performative: The confident veneer cracks at Dave Kaminski’s party—“Why don’t you want me?”—revealing how much of her power is a shield against rejection.
• Curated beauty as power: Once a “homely eleven-year-old” with a Harry Potter scarf and long, curling toes, she now appears “tall and gorgeous” with striking light eyes and a painted-on mole—an image she manages as social currency.

Character Journey

Caroline’s arc is a revelation, not a transformation. Early scenes showcase her dominance: the cafeteria outburst, the audition she steers toward humiliation, the easy confidence of a girl who knows the rules because she wrote them. But as Jack’s attention drifts toward Libby—someone who refuses to play by those rules—Caroline’s certainty erodes. The party rejection exposes the fear beneath her queen-bee persona: if her beauty and status can’t secure love, what does she have? Unlike Libby, who embraces vulnerability as strength, Caroline clings to the performance, and in doing so grows lonelier, a cautionary figure trapped by the very image that elevated her.

Key Relationships

• Jack Masselin: Caroline and Jack are the “everyone-assumes-we’ll-end-up-together-forever” couple. For Jack, she represents safety and recognizability; for Caroline, he is proof of her desirability and rank. When his interest in Libby threatens that narrative, Caroline doubles down on control—first with warnings, then with seduction—only to discover that status can’t secure intimacy.

• Libby Strout: To Caroline, Libby is a test case for enforcing the social order: shame her weight, question her worth, keep her out. Their clashes—classroom barbs, the rigged audition—contrast Libby’s growing self-possession with Caroline’s dependency on external validation. The more Libby refuses to be diminished, the more Caroline’s power looks hollow.

• Kendra Wu: Kendra acts as Caroline’s amplifier and mirror. Together they form a mean-girl dyad that normalizes cruelty as bonding. Kendra’s presence doesn’t cause Caroline’s behavior so much as it helps maintain the ecosystem where Caroline’s authority thrives.

Defining Moments

Caroline’s power consolidates in public spaces—cafeteria, gym, party—where spectators reinforce her image. Each key scene strips a layer from that image.

• The cafeteria confrontation

  • What happens: After Libby punches Jack, Caroline screams, “YOU HIT HIM? YOU STUPID COW! HE WASN’T HURTING YOU!”
  • Why it matters: It reveals her possessiveness and her instinct to humiliate rivals quickly and loudly, claiming the narrative before anyone else can.

• The Damsels audition

  • What happens: As captain, she interrogates Libby about her weight—“Would you be willing to lose weight if you were wanted?”
  • Why it matters: Caroline uses institutional power to police bodies, exposing how social cruelty hides behind “standards” and making her a mouthpiece for the novel’s critique of surface judgments.

• The party rejection

  • What happens: At Dave Kaminski’s party, she offers sex to win Jack back; when he declines, she breaks down—“Why don’t you want me?”
  • Why it matters: The mask slips. Without status and sexuality as leverage, Caroline confronts the terror of being undesired, revealing the fragility beneath her dominance.

Essential Quotes

YOU HIT HIM? YOU STUPID COW! HE WASN’T HURTING YOU! This eruption is pure public theater: Caroline defends her claim on Jack while branding Libby as irrational and dangerous. The volume and insult are strategic—humiliate first, define the scene, keep control.

“You look really pretty.” On its face, this sounds kind; in context, it’s a “pity compliment” that reduces Libby to appearance and frames Caroline as the arbiter of acceptability. Praise becomes condescension when it enforces a hierarchy.

“Would you be willing to lose weight if you were wanted? You know. If you were to make the team?” Caroline fuses desire (“wanted”) with compliance (“lose weight”), implying worth depends on shrinking oneself. The question exposes how gatekeeping masquerades as concern for standards.

“If you walk away, Jack, don’t come back. You don’t get to do that and come back.” Her ultimatum reveals a transactional view of intimacy: loyalty is about territory, not mutual understanding. It’s an attempt to legislate feelings that are already slipping beyond her control.

“I think it’s sweet that you want to be nice to her after what you did, but I’m just concerned about her. Girls like that, you can’t mess around with them, Jack. You could end up breaking her heart.” Cloaked as protectiveness, this is reputational warfare. Caroline positions herself as the reasonable caretaker while subtly othering Libby as fragile and risky, reinforcing stereotypes that keep Libby outside the circle.