55 pages • 1 hour read
Woke Up Like This
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Character Analysis
Charlotte (Char) Wu
Char is the protagonist of the novel as well as its first-person narrator. Like many heroines of romance novels, she is smart and proud. Char is a dynamic character who undergoes a significant change in her outlook on life throughout the narrative as a result of her conflict with J. T. Renner. In ninth grade, her wounded ego launched her into an adversarial relationship with J. T., but once these rivals are removed from the present and cast into the future, she learns to recognize her own mistakes and grows to understand his perspective. Char also learns to read and anticipate J. T.’s emotions, something at which she fails miserably at first, as she learns The Need for Empathy and her tendency toward judgment diminishes. She begins the novel as a character who is consumed by past resentments and future anxieties, but she ends it as someone who lives in the present.
When she was a child, Char’s father left and her parents divorced, compelling Char to become self-sufficient because of her mother’s forgetfulness. As a result of these experiences, Char has difficulty trusting others: One of her parents left the family and contacted Char with greater infrequency over the years, and the other parent cannot be counted on for basic things like providing rides to and from school. In addition, because Char’s father only seemed to warm to her when she had accomplishments to report, she began to prioritize achievements to impress him and elicit the affection and attention she craved as a child. This encouraged her to focus on setting goals and cataloguing successes. Lea uses the motif of lists to characterize Char and represent her struggle to be present in the moment. By always concentrating on the next bucket list achievement, Char has deprived herself of appreciating her accomplishments because she is always looking ahead. By the end of the novel, however, J. T. shows her how fulfilling relishing the present moment can be.
In addition, in the aftermath of her father’s death, when Char and J. T. are 30, Char finds out how freeing it is to let go of past resentment not only of J. T. but also of her father. Early on, Char feels embittered by her father’s abandonment, and his announcement that he has a baby on the way and is cutting back at work only increases her resentment. Just before Char time travels to the future, her father asks her to lunch and invites her to spend the summer with him and his new girlfriend. After learning, at 30, that he has died, Char is much more eager to accept the olive branch and renew the relationship. Her empathy now extends to him, as it does to J. T., and she realizes that adults make mistakes, just like teens do, and that hanging onto her anger accomplishes nothing.
J. T. Renner
J. T. is Char’s love interest and long-time rival, though he is not an antagonist given that he ultimately aids the protagonist’s growth rather than hinders it. He is a more static character than Char. Though he gets better at interpreting and predicting Char’s emotions when they experience life together at 30, his fundamental worldview remains unchanged. J. T.’s behavior is grounded in past experiences, like Char’s; he developed a phobia of being disliked after the death of his younger sister, Susie. Not long after she died, he succeeded in making his parents laugh with a dumb joke, and his responsibility for this moment of joy thrilled him so deeply that he made it his mission to make them, and everyone else around him, happy. Since then, he has been charming and funny, though sincere. This is something that Char does not understand until they jump into the future, and she gives him the chance to explain why he stood her up at homecoming in ninth grade: It was to be with his mom, who was struggling with her grief over Susie’s death. Lea presents J. T. as a truly kind person who just wants to make other people smile, and his benevolence isn’t self-serving, as Char believed for a long time.
J. T. challenges Char, encouraging her to value herself more highly, especially in regard to her friendship with Kassie, and to allow herself to see the advantages of fun. Char always wants to be in control, finding herself to be more reliable than anyone else in her life, but J. T. is so trustworthy that she is able to hand him the reins for a while, and allowing him to lead gives her a tremendous sense of peace. He is goofy, unembarrassed, and unapologetically present, showing Char The Importance of Being Present. When Char needs to have fun and distract herself from life’s challenges or sorrows, J. T. is there. He is also there for her in difficult moments, such as when she visits her father’s widow and her two half-sisters. He is empathetic, too, making space for Char to feel however she needs to feel about the loss of Kassie’s friendship and the death of her father. His kindness touches her and paves the way for her character development into a happier, more present person.
Kassie
Kassie is Char’s best friend, yet she is the antagonistic figure in the novel. Though Char is incredibly loyal to Kassie, she learns that Kassie has been somewhat less loyal to her, having told a lie at the beginning of ninth grade that has impacted Char’s entire high school experience and prevented her from enjoying a relationship with J. T. until the very end of their senior year. Kassie can also be quite critical of Char, accusing her, for example, of being bossy without understanding that Char’s desire for control is a product of the pain she’s experienced in the past. Nevertheless, Char clings to the beautiful and popular Kassie, feeling lucky to be Kassie’s best friend. Though Kassie has been unreliable for years, often breaking plans to be with her boyfriend, as a senior, Kassie begins to pull away from Char, spending more time with an adjacent friend group. Though it gets harder to justify Kassie’s behavior, Char cannot imagine her life without Kassie in it, and so she is shocked to learn that she and Kassie have lost touch by the time they are 30. Their friendship has been of such importance to Char that she cannot imagine them being so apathetic about one another that they simply allow it to fade away. Learning this truth teaches Char another element of The Unexpected Joy and Pain of Growing Up: that friendships ebb and flow naturally.
Realizing that this friendship has run its course and that relationships necessarily change as people grow is a big part of Char’s personal transformation. Char learns on whom she can rely and on whom she cannot and how to move on without holding a grudge. By the end, Char has matured enough to confront Kassie about her lies and shortcomings as a friend, and she’s also learned how to move on from their friendship without becoming embittered or resentful. Ultimately, by the time she turns 30, Kassie realizes how detrimental to herself her romantic relationships have been, and she also creates a life that allows her to find peace, be herself, and be happy. For this reason, she is a dynamic character, and she subverts the romance genre as the novel’s representation of finding fulfilment beyond romantic love.
Nori
Though Char doesn’t consciously realize it at first, Nori is a much better friend to her than Kassie is. This is another example of Lea’s use of dramatic irony in the text: She makes it clear to the reader that Nori is the better choice of friend, and she highlights Char’s growth when she realizes this, too. Nori and Kassie—foils to each other—are friendly enough to one another, but Nori really doesn’t care for Kassie, and Char knows that she is the glue that holds the group together. Nori is very aware of how self-centered Kassie is and seems to care more about Char than Kassie does. Nori has a girlfriend, but she never breaks plans with Char to be with her significant other, while this is fairly routine for Kassie. By the time they are 30, Nori is Char’s closest friend, while Kassie is completely out of the picture.
Nori is the one person Char and J. T. think will believe that they have traveled through time. She is creative, open-minded, and similar to J. T. in one important way: Nori lives in the moment. Moreover, she does not care what other people think of her. At prom, Char says that Nori embodies the expression “dance like no one is watching” (271), meaning that Nori is unapologetically herself and doesn’t worry how others might perceive her. Her similarity in this moment to the night when J. T. dons a ridiculous thrift-store outfit, causing others to gawk at him incredulously, is clear. Being with Nori, like being with J. T., brings Char a sense of tranquility and fun that she lacks with others.
Nori is a static character, much the same at 30 as she is at 17, and like J. T., she serves as a helpmeet to Char as Char undergoes significant character development. Both Nori and J. T. are reliable and truthful, and both are truly present in their own lives, refusing to waste time on resentment or bitterness; both make their feelings about Kassie known to Char, but neither is vengeful or harsh in their condemnation of Kassie. Nori represents supportive friendship, always trying to bolster Char’s confidence and sense of self-worth.
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