CHARACTER
Sometimes I Lieby Alice Feeney

Jo

Jo

Quick Facts

Bold and unseen, Jo is introduced as radio producer Amber Reynolds’s colleague at Coffee Morning and her closest confidante, the one who helps her scheme against their exacting boss, Madeline Frost to survive office politics. In truth, Jo is a long-standing imaginary friend—an extension of Amber herself—first “appearing” in early work scenes and shaping Amber’s choices from behind the veil of the narrator’s mind. Her core connections circle Amber’s marriage and family history, especially the childhood bond between Amber and her sister, with Jo acting as the hidden bridge between them.

Who They Are

Jo is the friend Amber invents to be exactly what she cannot find in real life: loyal, strategic, and bracingly honest. As a projection of Amber’s subconscious, Jo turns private anxieties into dialogue, letting the novel perform its greatest trick—making readers trust a character who never existed. That misdirection isn’t a gimmick; it’s the book’s argument that perception is a story we tell ourselves. Jo embodies Deception and Unreliable Narration and sits at the crossroads of Identity and Self-Perception, Trauma and its Lasting Effects, and Memory and Reality: an imaginary companion who grows from childhood loneliness into an adult coping strategy. Even Jo’s “look”—perpetually nineties jeans, scuffed boots, damp blond hair—feels preserved in amber, a static image that hints at her unreal, unchanging nature.

Personality & Traits

Jo’s personality is a curated toolkit: she pushes Amber to act, justifies the risky plays, and cracks the jokes Amber can’t say aloud. She is both comfort and permission slip, making it easier for Amber to be ruthless without admitting that ruthlessness is her own.

  • Supportive, to a fault: When Amber’s job is threatened, Jo instantly co-designs a plan to protect it, reinforcing her role as the friend who always shows up—even if “showing up” is Amber showing up for herself.
  • Tactical and manipulative: Jo favors actionable schemes over empathy; “Project Madeline” isn’t just venting, it’s leverage, revealing the calculating edge Amber would rather disown.
  • Wry and incisive: Jo’s sarcasm externalizes Amber’s private judgments, letting the narration feel social and quick-witted while hiding its solitary source.
  • Socially “invisible”: Interactions subtly show no one else noticing Jo’s entrances or comments—a form-fitting clue that her presence is internal, not interpersonal.

Character Journey

Jo begins as the best kind of work friend: the one who knows the office’s pressure points and how to press them. The façade cracks when Amber’s husband, Paul Reynolds, can’t find a single coworker who has heard of Jo, flipping the reader’s certainty into suspicion. The later revelation—through the childhood diary of Claire, formerly Taylor—that Jo was an imaginary friend “lent” to Amber recasts Jo as a lifelong support Amber has never truly outgrown. In Amber’s coma dream, Jo’s quiet exit with a younger Amber signals release: the moment the adult self no longer needs the fiction to cope. Jo’s arc, then, is not growth but disappearance—the dissolving of a defense once it has done its job.

Key Relationships

  • Amber Reynolds: Jo is Amber’s shadow self—the voice that strategizes, comforts, and authorizes boldness. Their “conversations” are Amber’s private negotiations with fear and ambition, giving her plausible deniability for choices she already wants to make.
  • Claire (Taylor): Jo is the secret stitching the sisters share. Originating as Claire’s imaginary friend and “given” to Amber, Jo becomes an emblem of their fraught closeness: a tender act that later complicates their adult entanglements and the story’s treatment of Sisterhood and Toxic Relationships.
  • Paul Reynolds: Paul’s inability to locate Jo in the real world is the plot’s pressure test. His search exposes the gap between Amber’s version of reality and everyone else’s, turning Jo from confidante into evidence.

Defining Moments

Jo’s scenes are really Amber’s turning points; each moment exposes how Jo enables, protects, and finally releases her.

  • Devising “Project Madeline”: Over drinks, Jo outlines a step-by-step plan to undermine the boss, cementing her as Amber’s strategist and co-conspirator (Chapter context: Chapter 1-5 Summary). Why it matters: It proves Jo is the part of Amber that acts, not merely listens.
  • The Diary Reveal: Claire’s childhood entry explains that Jo was an imaginary friend she “lent” to Amber (Chapter context: Chapter 41-45 Summary). Why it matters: It reframes every prior scene with Jo as a coping mechanism rooted in childhood.
  • Paul’s Discovery: While Amber lies in a coma, Paul learns no “Jo” works at Coffee Morning (Chapter context: Chapter 61-65 Summary). Why it matters: It’s the first objective proof that the narration has been lying—even to itself.
  • The Coma Dream Farewell: Jo walks away hand-in-hand with a younger Amber (Chapter context: Chapter 66-67 Summary). Why it matters: The image dramatizes integration—Amber no longer needs the partitioned self.

Essential Quotes

“Sorry I’m late,” she whispers. Nobody apart from me notices.
— Chapter 1-5 Summary

This line hides the solution in plain sight. The offhand aside—“Nobody apart from me”—is a structural clue that everyone ignores because Jo “feels” real; the book trains us to miss the oddity the way Amber does.

“Drama really follows you like a shadow, doesn’t it?”
— Chapter 1-5 Summary

Jo characterizes trouble as Amber’s “shadow,” unwittingly describing herself: a shadow that accompanies Amber everywhere. The metaphor collapses the distance between friend and projection, hinting that Jo equals drama, and drama equals Amber.

Nobody at Coffee Morning is called Jo. I asked him if maybe it was a nickname or something, told him that she was definitely a friend of Amber’s from work. Then he got all flustered and tried to find a polite way to tell me that Amber didn’t have any friends at work.
— Chapter 61-65 Summary

Spoken from outside Amber’s consciousness, this is the narrative’s reality check. The tonal shift—from Amber’s inward banter to a factual contradiction—forces readers to recalibrate every earlier scene.

She said Jo could come home with me for the night, just to see if we could be friends too. I said no thanks. Taylor got all weird then and said that Jo was sitting on one of the empty swings and not to hurt her feelings.
— Chapter 41-45 Summary

The childhood image of an “empty swing” turns absence into presence. It gives Jo a tangible origin in the sisters’ shared imagination, transforming a twist into the emotional residue of loneliness.

She’s dressed the same as always, in blue denim jeans and a white top, like she can’t move on from the nineties. The boots she says she hates are worn down at the heel and her blond hair is damp from the rain. She sits at the desk next to mine, opposite the rest of the producers.
— Chapter 1-5 Summary

The hyper-specific, unchanging description sells Jo’s reality while signaling her stasis. Objects wear down; Jo does not evolve—because she can’t. The static snapshot foreshadows that she’s an idea, not a person.