Content Warning: This section discusses bullying and child abuse. One character’s use of an offensive term for Indigenous people is reproduced in a quote.

Gus is the novel’s round, dynamic protagonist who also serves as its first-person narrator. Gus used to live in Reno, Nevada, with his father, who worked as a glazier. After an unexpected trip to Disneyland, Gus’s father left him with his grandmother in Nowhere, Arizona, leaving Gus to regret that “no one in this world wants [him]” (116). Lonely and discouraged, Gus characterizes Nowhere as the “least livable town in the United States” (26).

Gus, an avid reader, describes himself as the “smartest person in [his] school” (33), and he often enhances the narrative with vocabulary like “ignominy,” “abyss,” and “claustrophobia.” Encouraged by his fifth-grade teacher, Gus has already prepared for the SAT, hopeful that a high score will help his admission to college. However, despite his academic success, Gus still worries about his size: His “smaller and weaker” build makes him an easy target for Bo (3), and he admits that most of Nowhere Elementary’s third graders are “capable of beating [him] up” (22). He’s also one of the only teenagers who hasn’t yet learned to race bikes, rendering him an outsider in his community.