Grace Sorenson

Quick Facts

Grace Sorenson is the youngest of the four Sorenson sisters, born nine years after her next-oldest sister, Liza Sorenson. First seen as a child at Wendy Sorenson’s wedding and in the novel’s present-day Portland timeline, she’s the “afterthought” in the family of Marilyn Sorenson and David Sorenson. Key relationships: her doting parents; her sisters Wendy, Violet Sorenson-Lowell, and Liza; and Ben Barnes, a barista/bike messenger who represents a life beyond the Sorenson orbit.

Who They Are

Grace is the family’s beloved “epilogue”—the child conceived after the main plot seemed complete. That status both cossets and confines her: she’s cherished by parents whose marriage is a mythic gold standard and overshadowed by sisters whose lives feel fully underway. Her identity crisis after college—compounded by a lie about getting into law school—exposes the gap between who her family believes she is and who she fears she might be. In this tension, Grace embodies The Ideal vs. Reality of Love and Marriage and the isolating spiral of Secrets and Their Consequences. The novel emphasizes interiority over appearance; images like her “shredded wheat” apartment render her self-contempt and stasis more vividly than any physical portrait.

Personality & Traits

Grace wears a mask of easygoing pragmatism while wrestling with profound insecurity. Conflict-avoidant and deeply empathetic, she lies not to gain status but to protect the people she loves—and to borrow, briefly, the confidence she lacks. Her loneliness and shame make her self-sabotaging, yet her warmth and conscience keep pulling her toward truth.

• Insecure and adrift: After a string of rejections, she throws away the final small envelope from the University of Oregon unopened, then thinks, “She had somehow botched her life to an almost laughable degree, and then accidentally lied about it.”
• Conflict-avoidant compassion: When her father sounds overwhelmed, she withholds the truth about law school—self-protection mixed with care—choosing silence over a confession that might burden him.
• Profoundly lonely: In Portland, she “lived a little bit like how she imagined murderers lived: sparsely, and with shame,” a mordant self-image that signals isolation rather than villainy.
• Pragmatic persona vs. anxious interior: The family’s “Jolly, pragmatic Grace” is a performance; the lie exposes how fragile that persona is—and how hard she works to preserve it for others.
• Kind and empathetic: She’s genuinely thrilled by Liza’s tenure and feels a “barb of guilt” for lying to the sister who has always been kindest to her; the “Goose” card from her parents makes her cry for forty-five minutes.
• Wry, self-deprecating humor: Banter with Liza (“Yes, it’s been brought to my attention before.”) shows how Grace uses wit to mask the ache of their nine-year gap and to “level the playing field.”

Character Journey

Grace begins at rock bottom: rejected from law school, isolated in a “janky” apartment, and spiraling into a lie that promises relief but breeds shame. That lie—first told impulsively to Liza—quickly hardens into a private burden that walls her off from the family whose love she most craves. Meeting Ben Barnes offers a pocket of ease and possibility, a relationship untethered to Sorenson expectations. As the secret unravels and she’s forced to face home, the exposure is painful but clarifying: she learns that love endures imperfection, and that belonging need not be earned through exceptionalism. As detailed in the Full Book Summary, Grace moves from passivity to agency—exchanging the “afterthought” label for authorship, and trading the safety of illusion for the risk of an honest life.

Key Relationships

• Marilyn and David Sorenson: Their doting faith in her—“Jolly, pragmatic Grace,” destined for greatness—gives her a sturdy foundation and a crushing weight. Her lie is an act of misplaced protectiveness: she can’t bear to puncture their optimism, so she disappoints herself instead. The “Goose” note crystallizes how their love magnifies her guilt rather than erasing it.

• Liza Sorenson: Grace identifies with Liza’s quieter temperament and takes comfort in thinking of Liza as “arguably the third least interesting Sorenson child”—a joking demotion that makes space for Grace to exist. When Liza announces tenure, Grace’s impulsive “acceptance” to law school feels like parity at last, but it immediately traps her in secrecy and regret.

• Wendy and Violet Sorenson-Lowell: The two eldest sisters loom large—dramatic, competent, already storied—helping fix Grace’s self-image as the “epilogue.” A childhood snapshot at Wendy’s wedding (“shy, stunted soon-to-be second-grader”) prefigures the adult pattern: in rooms where Wendy and Violet command narratives, Grace recedes, crafting a smaller self to avoid missteps.

• Ben Barnes: With Ben, Grace finds a rare experience of ease unmediated by Sorenson history. His grounded, unpretentious life offers a mirror where she can see herself without the family’s flattering (and distorting) lens—nudging her toward honesty.

Defining Moments

Grace’s story turns on small, human choices—each one compounding the last—until secrecy forces a reckoning.

• The rejection letter she doesn’t open: Faced with the small envelope from the University of Oregon, she discards it unread. Why it matters: a tiny act of denial that shifts her from hope to avoidance, setting the conditions for the lie.
• The lie to Liza: During a congratulatory call, Grace lets Liza believe she was accepted to law school. Why it matters: born from insecurity and the desire to “level the playing field,” the lie grants short-term relief but isolates her from the person most likely to understand.
• The call with her father: Hearing his overwhelmed voice, she decides not to confess. Why it matters: her empathy becomes the vehicle of her avoidance; love and fear blur, tightening the knot she’ll later have to untie.
• The “Goose” card and $100: “Keep up the good work.” Why it matters: her parents’ unguarded tenderness intensifies her shame, dramatizing the moral cost of deception born of love.
• The “shredded wheat” apartment: A drab, cereal-colored room mirrors her self-perception. Why it matters: the setting externalizes her stagnation—Grace’s life looks exactly as colorless as she believes herself to be.
• Meeting Ben Barnes: A spontaneous, easy connection in the midst of anxiety. Why it matters: introduces a non-Sorenson future and the courage to imagine a self beyond the family script.

Essential Quotes

Her father sometimes called her the “only only-child in the world who has three sisters.”

This paradox captures Grace’s outsider-insider status: raised as a cherished singleton within a crowded narrative. It explains both her privilege (undivided parental attention) and her isolation (perpetual younger-sibling smallness).

She lived a little bit like how she imagined murderers lived: sparsely, and with shame.

The hyperbole is comic and cutting, revealing how thoroughly Grace has moralized her failure. The sparse apartment becomes a self-imposed punishment, making her private life a sentence rather than a home.

“Oh my God, my little sister’s going to be a lawyer. You know I used to change your diapers, right?”

“Yes, it’s been brought to my attention before.” The feeling of having leveled the playing field a bit was definitely not unpleasant, especially after Liza had invoked diapers to highlight their nine-year age gap.

The exchange lays bare the power imbalance Grace feels with Liza; her quip asserts adult parity, even as the lie that makes it possible corrodes intimacy. Humor is both defense and deflection.

Goose, Take yourself out to dinner. Keep up the good work. We love you. Dad and Mom.

It was written in her father’s hand and it made her cry for forty-five minutes.

Affection becomes indictment: the more unconditional their love, the heavier Grace’s guilt. The length of her tears marks the turning point where the lie is no longer protective but actively painful.

Her apartment was “the precise color and consistency of shredded wheat.”

This tactile, unglamorous image is Grace’s psyche mapped onto space—dry, brittle, nutritionally dutiful, joyless. It crystallizes how environment and self-belief conspire to keep her stuck until she chooses color over camouflage.