Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child death and death by suicide.

Daisy Flowers is one of the central characters in the book. She is 15 years old when she first arrives in Possum Flats, Missouri, to spend the summer with her grandmother, Rose, because her mother is moving to California with a new boyfriend. Daisy is unhappy with the prospect of living with a grandmother that she is meeting for the very first time. Desperate to make something concrete and meaningful of her own, she soon secures an internship at the local newspaper, The Picayune.

Daisy is consumed by Loneliness and the Struggle to Connect, a mindset that has arisen from the unpredictable and tumultuous nature of her upbringing. Because her mother, Lettie, has always had a wild and whimsical nature, Daisy was forced to move from place to place throughout her childhood. As a result, she never stayed anywhere long enough to forge strong connections, nor did she develop a strong relationship with Lettie or the rest of her family. (Lettie was a single mother and had almost no contact with her parents.) Thus, the central challenge for Daisy is to form meaningful relationships and find a sense of belonging within the Possum Flats community.