"I am aware as I step into the common room that the majority of people are almost dead, including me. I have been reliably informed that the post-Christmas blues are entirely normal and that we should expect to feel somewhat numb after the `happiest' time of the year, but I don't feel so different now to how I felt on Christmas Eve, or on Christmas Day, or on any other day since the Christmas holidays started. I'm back now and it's another year. Nothing is going to happen." (3)
This is the opening paragraph of the novel. Shortly below it, the first-person narrator introduces herself with her legal name, but even before that happens, she has already been called Tori by another character. This passage is significant not just because it introduces the protagonist, but for the way, she introduces herself. The opening lines lead to hyperbole. Nobody is dead. The overview of how the holiday season tends to become a disappointment makes Tori immediately relatable. And, of course, there is that typical teenage expectation that nothing new ever happens. This assertion builds up the expectations, naturally, that something is very much going to happen. Something big and substantial.
"I don't blog to get more blog followers or whatever...It's just that it's not socially acceptable to say depressing stuff out loud in the real world because people think that you're attention seeking. I hate that. So what I'm saying is that it's nice to be able to say whatever I want. Even if it is only on the internet."
The opening of the book foreshadows a little darkness in its narrator. She has a brother, Charlie, who is dealing with a mental illness in an explicit way, but as the story goes on, it becomes increasingly apparent that Tori is dealing with mental health issues as well. Her dismissal of the internet as being some sort of protective space in which to say stuff she is afraid to say out loud is quaint. Unless it is an unwitting admission of Tori's lack of experience and uninformed innocence. This is really the quality of her personality that separates her from the "misery chicks" of the world embodied by the iconic Daria. Neither is she a modern-day incarnation of Wednesday Addams. Tori is surrounded by supporting characters and yet despite her darker moments, she is more engaging and less, at times, annoying than her circle of acquaintances. And blogging for the sake of one's own mental health rather than solely for the purpose of increasing the number of followers definitely makes Tori exist outside the mainstream.
"I get the impression that I’ve ruined this conversation, so I mumble an excuse and lift myself off my chair and hurry out of the common room door. Sometimes I hate people. This is probably very bad for my mental health."
The conversation which she assumes she has ruined has revolved around the subject of what is referred to as "Drarry." This is the romantic couple nickname given to the idea that Draco Malfoy is secretly in love with Harry Potter. Draco and Harry equal Drarry in other words. This also comes very early in the story, but it is a significant moment that will define not just Tori, but her friends Evelyn and Becky. Tori believes that she has ruined this conversation because she looking at it from the perspective of the Harry Potter brand. Evelyn and Becky, on the other hand, are passionately engaged in a disagreement as if discussing actual people they know. The book is filled with pop culture references so it is not as if Tori is one of those people who can't imagine fictional creations being real. She is instead of those much rarer types of people who can recognize when they stand outside the bubble of conformity and at the same time wonder whether that is a good or bad thing.
