Identity and Coming of Age
What This Theme Explores
Identity and Coming of Age in How to Make Friends with the Dark asks what remains when the center of a young person’s life is ripped away. For sixteen-year-old Tiger Tolliver, identity begins as an extension of her mother, June, and is then shattered by sudden loss. The novel probes how grief, institutional labels, and buried family histories collide to unmake and remake the self. It argues that adolescence can be a crucible where labels like “orphan” and “ward” press in—but where a more complex, self-chosen identity can still be forged.
How It Develops
At the start, Tiger’s selfhood is defined by June: she is the “weird daughter,” both protected by and chafing against that role. Small acts—like wanting to go to a dance with Kai Henderson—signal her tentative steps toward a separate teenage identity, even as questions about her unknown father leave her feeling incomplete.
June’s death violently collapses this fragile independence, thrusting Tiger into the machinery of The Foster Care System and Child Welfare. Overnight she becomes “a case,” an “orphan,” a file number. She clings to the lace dress as a talisman of the life that just ended, even as time in group homes and juvie—with kids like Thaddeus Roach—forces her to see herself within a wider community of loss and survival rather than a uniquely cursed outlier.
The discovery of her father, Dustin "Dusty" Franklin, and half-sister, Shayna Lee Franklin, complicates Tiger’s sense of self: she is not only a daughter to the dead but also a mirror to the living, heir to a lineage of secrets and resilience. In the Grief Group, alongside peers such as Mae-Lynn Carpenter, she begins to integrate Grief and Loss into her identity rather than letting it define her. By learning to drive with Shayna, laying down the dress, and choosing Tucson, Tiger moves from being acted upon to steering her life—accepting that her new self must hold both devastation and possibility.
Key Examples
These moments crystallize Tiger’s fractured-to-forged journey.
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Pre-Tragedy Identity Struggle: Tiger’s reflection becomes a site of alienation as she recognizes the parts of herself that don’t match her mother and that point to an unnamed father. The longing to be “someone else,” or at least someone separate, shows an identity still forming—and unsure what to include or leave behind.
Then, like I always do, I allow myself a minimum of three seconds to wonder: Who the hell is that? Where did she come from? Because the dark and straight hair is nothing like my mother’s short, light mop. My freckles look like scattered dirt next to her creamy, blemish-free face. So much of me is from The Person Who Shall Not Be Named. So much of me is unknown. — Chapter 1-5 Summary
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The Shattering of Identity: At the hospital, Tiger’s self-understanding collapses into the starkest labels: motherless, nothing. The novel frames this as a “before/after” breach—the moment that empties her of inherited identity and demands a new one be built from absence.
I think: This girl is motherless. This girl has nothing. Tears stream down her haunted, carved-out face. — Chapter 6-10 Summary
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Forging a New Identity Through Shared Pain: In the Grief Group, Tiger expects judgment but receives recognition. That shift—from fearing exposure to feeling seen—repositions her identity within a fellowship of survivors, making community a tool for growth rather than a mirror of shame.
I was afraid they’d tell me I was crazy, that I should get rid of it, stop wearing it, but they don’t. “Thank you,” I say. — Chapter 31-35 Summary
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Accepting a New Future: Choosing to leave with Shayna acknowledges that the past can’t be restored—and that love can also move forward. Tiger’s assent to “home” as something new rather than something lost signals a coming-of-age rooted in agency.
Shayna says, “I’m here, Tiger. I love you. I’m gonna take care of you, okay?” And then she tugs on my hair gently and says, “Come on, kid. Let’s get out of here. Let’s go home.” — Chapter 56-57 Summary
Character Connections
Tiger Tolliver’s arc is the book’s compass: she moves from being June’s daughter to claiming a self that can hold grief, guilt, and hope at once. Her embrace of a new network—both biological and chosen—recasts vulnerability as strength and underscores the novel’s belief in Family and Found Family as scaffolding for identity.
June Tolliver emerges, after death, as a full person rather than a role: an orphan, a skilled equestrian, a protector whose secrets carried both love and cost. Seeing her mother clearly helps Tiger accept that identities—parent and child alike—are layered, contradictory, and often stitched together by silence.
Shayna Lee Franklin embodies an unexpected inheritance: sisterhood that arrives with responsibility. Taking on guardianship while wrestling her own wounds, Shayna mirrors Tiger’s messy growth and models a form of adulthood that is caring, imperfect, and in motion.
Cake Rishworth offers a foil—her steadier path highlights the novel’s insistence that there is no single template for growing up. Against Cake’s clarity, Tiger’s nonlinear route shows that upheaval can still yield maturity, just on a different timetable and through different tests.
Across group homes and detention, figures like Thaddeus Roach and the Grief Group—Mae-Lynn, Taran, Alif, and Lupe Hidalgo—expand Tiger’s understanding of identity from “me alone” to “us, together.” Their stories normalize sorrow and survival, transforming Tiger’s labels from stigmas into shared language.
Symbolic Elements
The Lace Dress: First a battleground over control and taste, the dress becomes a reliquary for Tiger’s love and regret. Her refusal to take it off externalizes her struggle with Guilt and Forgiveness; shedding it marks her readiness to carry memory without letting grief dictate her self.
Mirrors and Reflections: Tiger’s uneasy gaze at her own face symbolizes a fractured lineage and an unfinished identity. Each glance tests whether she belongs to June, to an unnamed father, or to a new self she’s still assembling.
The Name “Tiger”: What began as a nickname for a child’s fierce attachment evolves into a promise of strength. By the end, “Tiger” signifies not possession but resilience—the will to fight for her boundaries, her sister, and her future.
Driving: Moving from passenger to driver is a classic rite of passage that here literalizes agency. With Shayna beside her, Tiger learns that control is not freedom from pain, but the capacity to navigate through it.
Contemporary Relevance
Tiger’s story resonates in a moment when many teens confront instability, systemic gaps, and layered grief. The novel validates the messy work of self-definition amid trauma and suggests that healing is communal as much as individual—echoing contemporary conversations about Mental Health and Coping Mechanisms. Its insistence on found kinship, peer support, and honest naming of pain speaks to readers for whom identity is not given but built.
Essential Quote
I think: This girl is motherless. This girl has nothing.
This line captures the zero point of Tiger’s identity: the moment everything collapses into absence, and the page for a new self is brutally cleared. The rest of the novel challenges that verdict, showing how love, truth-telling, and chosen connections gradually refill the space that loss left behind.