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Jesmyn goes through many changes throughout the book, proving herself to be a dynamic character. For example, at the beginning of the novel, she is very depressed after all the trauma she had gone through. She quotes how her younger self felt, saying, “We are never free from grief. We are never free from the feeling that we have failed. We are never free from self-loathing. We are never free from the feeling that something is wrong with us, not with the world that made this mess.” (Ward, 380). By the end of the novel, she grows as a person and realizes that there is more to life than constantly feeling grief. She clarifies this by saying, “But this grief, for all its awful weight, insists that he matters” (Ward 385). She grows as a character and concludes that grief is a reminder that the people in her life mattered, that they did impact the lives of everyone around them. The grief is a reminder, a memory that her friends and family she lost did exist. It brings back memories, both happy and sad, and helped to shape her as a person. Jesmyn is dynamic in the way that she changes from the beginning when she first began writing her book, until the end. At the start, she is suicidal and believes she will never stop being sad, but by the end, she realizes the grief will always be there, it just will not be as loud.

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Jesmyn Ward experiences several different relationships throughout her life that changed who she was as a person. For example, the absence of her father greatly affected her depression. Despite the small memories of joy, he was the root of several of her issues with mental health. She verbally expresses her sadness by saying, “My Father’s leaving affected me. I locked myself in the bathroom sometimes, which was the only room in our new house where I could claim some privacy, and I looked at myself”(Ward, 217). Her father being so in and out made her feel undervalued. If she did not deserve the love of her father, she did not deserve to be loved at all. Jesmyn also had to take on the role of being a mother while her real Mother constantly worked. This type of stress at such a young age could potentially even have had permanent effects on her brain. It gave her the belief that men have it easy, and they do not need to be a part of their children's lives. It also influenced her depression and lowered her self worth. Jesmyn's relationship with her father is a good example of one of her several life-changing relationships.

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Norine cared deeply about her children and did everything she could to take care of them. Being a single, Black mother, she struggled to make enough for her family to survive. She did a good job of protecting her children from the racism and hatred many other families faced.

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Roger was a close friend to Nerissa, Jesmyn's sister. The two had dated in elementary school and continued their friendship for several years. He secretly struggled with a drug addiction. He was kind to Jesmyn and her sister, and showed them great hospitality every time they came over. His poor, Black family resulted in them living in a bad neighbourhood. This made it easier for him to get his hands on drugs. It started off with just weed, but he made his way up the ladder to coke and then crack. He died one night of a heart attack from the drugs. He was only 23 at the time. His body was not found for four entire days after his death. Roger tried to be dynamic, but his drug addiciton became too much to the point where he could not change, where he had changed so much he was too far gone.

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Demond was a friend of Jesmyn, and he had it much better off than most Black families in his community. He had both parents present, and everyone enjoyed hanging out with him. Similar to most Black people in their area, he did not attend college and instead went right into the workplace in Gulfport. He kept his life together, and even had a fiance and a young daughter. He witnessed a murder back in 2002, and two years later, at the age of 32, he decided to do the right thing and testify against a dangerous drug dealer in court. This results in someone murding him on his own front lawn after he came home late from work one night.

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Cj is Jesmyn's cousin. He had been a gloomy person as long as Jesmyn had known him. He believed from a young age that he would not live very long. He was a talented gymnest, and was described as first being "fair with a face full of freckles", but later as having long, dark hair, and being short and thin. He, similar to many others in Jesmyn's life, becomes addicted to coke. He was driving one day and was hit by a train due to the proper train warning being out of service. The car exploded upon impact, and he died instantly. Cj is a static character, througout his whle life he has no faith and sees no bright future or greener grass.

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Ronald was a camper at the mainly Black Christian summer camp she worked at. He had copper skin, freckles, and large, dark brown eyes. He was only nine years old, while Jesmyn was 15. He was a handsome boy and he developes a crush on Jesmyn, who was his dance teacher. He tells her he is going to marry her some day. Despite his chearful attitude, deep down he is depressed and it only becomes worse the older he gets. He eventually moves on from his crush and falls in love with a new girl. His mental health and the racism around him become too much, so he becomes addicted to drugs. He eventually shoots himself at his sister's house. Roger may seem like a dynamic character, but in some ways he is static. He was always secretly drepressed, he just eventually became tired of hiding it.

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Jesmyn Ward was inspired by the death of her brother to create this novel to memorialize the deaths of the fellow Black people who did not deserve to die so young. Simlar to author of, "A Red Girl's Reasoning", Pauline Johnston, Ward wanted to go against the typical steriotypes. She writes about her life growing up, and how the death of her brother influences her depression and near suicide. But desperate to keep fighting unlike any of her friends, she instead gets a tattoo in memory of her brother. Throughout her childhood, she used books to help her cope throughout her parents divorce and the bullying and racism she had to experience. She describes her experiences as not only a woman, but a Black woman.

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Joshua was hit and killed by a drunk driver. The man was white, and due to his privlidge the judge let him go easy by just charging him for the hit-and-run, despite murdering a human being with his recklessness.

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Joshua was the author's younger brother, and he was only 19 at the time of his death in the year 2000. The two were quite close, but not close enough for Jesmyn to know about his side business selling crack. He had to due this due to the absence of his father, and the struggle to get a high paying job as a black man, even in the 2000's. She eventually found out that he was selling it to make more money for their divorced and struggling parents. He cared dearly about his family and hated to see them struggle. He died after being hit by a drunk driver.