The It Girl

The foil character to Hannah in The It Girl, April Coutts-Cliveden is Hannah Jones’s suitemate and best friend at Oxford, where Hugh Bland murders her. April is the It Girl for which the novel is named. She comes from a wealthy family and regularly flaunts her father’s donations to Oxford, which afford her advantages. April carries herself with high self-confidence, dresses in designer clothes, drinks champagne, and posts artsy, glamorous pictures of herself on Instagram. She considers herself Will’s girlfriend, though she cheats on him regularly. April finds Oxford unimpressive and periodically plays cruel pranks on her close friends. Before Hugh reveals himself as April’s killer, he notes,

I didn’t think she was a particularly nice person, and she certainly wasn’t good for Will—she made him absolutely miserable that last term. I do get why everyone else fell for her. She was so funny, and she could be incredibly sweet when she wanted to. But some of her antics were pretty cruel (263).

As her roommate, Hannah sees a more intelligent and generous side of April. April gifts Hannah expensive designer clothes and accessories. She studies hard, sometimes all night, and helps Hannah revise her essays. She’s a talented actress. April confides in Hannah that her father is distant and that her mother has alcoholism and a drug addiction. Hannah sometimes observes momentary vulnerabilities in April: “Hannah felt, rather than heard, April swallow against her shoulder. An intake of breath, a catch in her throat. She felt April’s fingers tighten on her spine as though she almost didn’t want to let go” (114). Although she can be cruel and manipulative, April’s character is more nuanced than a standard bully. After her death, April’s reputation as an It Girl freezes in time, and the media constructs a limited sketch of April’s identity.

Hannah’s love interest throughout the novel, Will is April’s boyfriend at Oxford, though he and Hannah are obviously attracted to each other. He follows Hannah to Edinburgh, taking on a less lucrative job as an accountant. He comes from an upper-class family and attended prep school with Hugh. Other characters express their disappointment in Will for not doing more with his Oxford education. This elitism complicates Hannah and Will’s marriage, especially when Will attempts to control Hannah.

Will is the novel’s red herring: He looks more suspicious as the narrative develops, misdirecting away from Hugh, April’s killer. Will struggles to control his anger, often shouting at Hannah and hitting things. When Hannah learns that April was pregnant at the time of her death, she can’t deny that Will had a motive to want her dead. Ultimately, Will reveals himself as a loving and protective husband and father-to-be.

Will’s best friend and April’s murderer, Hugh receives minimal, indirect characterization throughout most of the novel to disguise his centrality to the novel’s events and reroute focus and suspicion to the other characters. He’s tall, pale, and skinny; dresses properly (though not stylishly); and always wears Stephen Hawking-style glasses. Hannah believes that her classmates from her hometown would have described Hugh as a “classic posh boy” (27). He’s almost too well-mannered for his generation and is awkward around women. In Edinburgh, Hugh becomes a plastic surgeon and partners with a lucrative private practice. He tends to be a show-off and never has a serious girlfriend.

Hugh’s parents put high expectations on him to do well in school and to have a successful career. Even though he ran in the same elite circles as Will and April in his adolescence, his parents “scraped together the money for their only child’s education, going without themselves, even as they pinned all their hopes on him” (83). This high-pressure upbringing turned him into a ruthless manipulator. Hugh cheated his way into Oxford and struggles with his coursework there. He manipulates April into thinking he’s helping her plan her final prank when really he’s planning to murder her. After April’s death, Hugh’s Oxford professors grade him leniently. When Hannah starts investigating April’s murder 10 years later, Hugh dissuades her multiple times from digging into the past, even feeding her false evidence. Ultimately, high expectations to do well academically as a child turned Hugh into a ruthless murderer, completely devoid of empathy.

Another member of Hannah’s friend group, Ryan lives in the same dorm as Will and Hugh at Oxford. He relates to Hannah in that he grew up in a lower socioeconomic class and didn’t have the same academic support as Will, Hugh, and April, so the elitist politics at Oxford anger him. Ryan maintains a macho persona and minimizes Hannah’s unease about Neville, but Hannah considers Ryan a loyal friend. Ryan has an affair with April at Oxford even though he’s Emily’s boyfriend and knows Will is dating April. His feelings toward April are complicated: She regularly flaunts the privilege and advantage that her wealthy, upper-class family affords her. Ryan feels obligated to continue sleeping with her to ensure that she won’t tell Emily, though he also enjoys the sex.

The narrative uses Ryan’s character to further explore the theme of guilt. In the “After” narrative, Ryan works as a journalist until he has a debilitating stroke. Hannah loses her close relationship with him after April dies, and she feels guilty for not trying to support him, especially when he’s unwell. Hannah goes out of her way to visit Ryan instead of simply calling him to ask about April’s potential pregnancy at the time of her death. This visit—and the interactions between Hannah and Ryan—demonstrate how friends can absolve each other of guilt.

On the first night at school, Emily meets Hannah and the rest of the Pelham friend group. She has “long dark hair, a serious, slightly equine face, black rectangular glasses, and she looked Ryan straight back in the eye with none of the diffidence Hannah would have felt at being appraised so baldly” (29). Emily is a talented and successful mathematician, both in the “Before” and “After” narratives. She’s confident and witty, though not a braggart. Emily supports Hannah after Neville’s assault, showing her empathy and standing by her as Hannah reports Neville.

Like Ryan, Emily serves as a distraction in the novel. She has motive and opportunity to kill April, and Hannah’s consideration of Emily (as well as Ryan, Will, and Dr. Myers) as a suspect hides Hugh as the potential killer. Hannah learns to set aside her emotions when examining her friends as possible suspects. She doesn’t want Emily to be the killer but realizes that uncovering the truth is more important than her emotional connections with the suspects.

Hannah’s academic advisor in English literature at Oxford’s Pelham College, Dr. Myers lives across the hall from Hannah and April. He pushes Hannah to inquire about her identity while at Oxford, and he considers her one of his most promising students. Dr. Myers engages in borderline inappropriate behavior with younger female students, and Hannah suspects he’s having an affair with April. Dr. Myers serves as a distraction (along with Emily, Ryan, and Will) to misdirect suspicion away from Hugh.

A reporter investigating April’s murder, Geraint previously worked with Ryan, and they remain friends. Geraint differs from other reporters and crime fanatics who have published stories about the case because he doesn’t believe John Neville is guilty of the crime. He has no interest in portraying April as “[s]oft focus, syrupy memories [...] and her potential. Sad-faced pictures of her friends and family pondering all they’ve lost” (62). He wants to uncover the truth about her murder. Hannah makes a point to avoid reporters, but her guilt and loyalty to Ryan motivate her to speak with Geraint. He brings to light questionable evidence and holes in the trial against Neville. Hannah has had similar questions in the years following Neville’s guilty conviction but chose to ignore those questions until Neville’s death.

A porter at Pelham, Neville has various duties, which include helping students settle into their rooms, working in the mailroom, and assisting with campus security. He’s “a big man, probably six foot, and younger than his colleague, with dark hair and a face that looked both pale and sweaty, even though he wasn’t doing anything remotely physical” (9-10). On several occasions, Neville makes Hannah feel uncomfortable by using his authority to manipulate her. One evening, he attacks Hannah, tackling her to the ground and nearly suffocating her. April is murdered soon after this incident, and Hannah’s eyewitness testimony places Neville at the crime scene. Ultimately, Neville dies in prison before he can prove his innocence.