Content Warning: This section of the guide includes descriptions of anti-gay bias, emotional abuse, and addiction.

Annie Callahan is the novel’s protagonist and principal narrator. The Three Lives of Cate Kay is framed as her memoir, written when she is 31 years old. Annie is the author of a series of three bestselling dystopian novels that have also spawned a film and merchandise empire, but out of a desire for privacy, she has written these under the pseudonym “Cate Kay.” As an adult, Annie uses several different pseudonyms—“Cass Ford” and “Cate Kay”—because she is ashamed of an incident early in her life, when she abandoned her best friend Amanda after Amanda was badly injured. Annie herself admits that whenever she is frightened, her first instinct is to run away from the problem, and this pattern persists throughout most of her life. She conforms to this pattern when she leaves Amanda lying injured after a fall, and, later, when she is afraid that Ryan may have betrayed her. This tell-all memoir is ultimately Annie’s way of facing her problems instead of running from them.

From the very beginning, Annie is portrayed as an intelligent and creative person.