The Lies I Tell

This final act brings the characters’ arcs full circle, with Kat beginning a new life built on her values and Meg retiring to a life of presumed calm now that she has brought justice to Ron Ashton. Even secondary characters, like Scott and Ron, face the winds of change, with Scott focusing on recovering from his addiction and Ron having to pick up the pieces in the wake of Meg’s plot against him. There are also hints that Nate will get his comeuppance. These arcs are reflective of the characters’ growth as Kat and Meg can see each other—and themselves—for who they truly are, and these arcs bring the theme of Girl Code: The Need for Women to Help Women to a close that reflects its nuance, complexity, and significance.

The nuance exists in the way Girl Code is applied to unique situations, especially those involving men. While this novel does take a strong stance against men who abuse their power and emphasizes how women need to look out for each other because no one else will, there are exceptions for antagonists like Scott, whom Kat realizes “isn’t like the men Meg targeted. He’s not greedy or corrupt; he’s just an addict, doing what addicts do. A man who needs help, not revenge” (289). This allowance for men and women alike to fail, to struggle, and to make bad choices layers in some grace to the idea of Girl Code. Meg was still looking out for Kat when she warned Kat about Scott’s actions, but they both didn’t turn around and scheme against him to get revenge. Instead, they both put their feet down (Meg, by wrecking his car, and Kat, by turning him away) and pushed him in the direction he needed to go to heal. This demonstrates that the theme of Girl Code isn’t about just standing up to the power of men but about acting with integrity in the pursuit of justice and protecting each other.

The complexity of the theme of Girl Code is demonstrated in the way Meg appreciates Kat’s understanding of her as “one of those people who can’t ever settle […] [t]he ones who move around looking for home and never finding it” (268). Girl Code requires understanding, and understanding can be quite complex. While Meg has done illegal things, and her actions indirectly hurt Kat, ultimately, Kat is able to see through that into who she is as a person, something Meg dearly appreciates about her and one of the reasons Meg kept Kat so close to her throughout the novel and gave her access to her notebooks at the end. Meg and Kat’s shared understanding of each other doesn’t come from a direct disclosure of the truth in one momentous conversation, but through a complexity of subtext beneath their multiple conversations. Kat sees how restless Meg is being a con artist, and Meg tells her, in her own way, that she’s done with that part of her life.

This nuance and complexity allow the significance of the Girl Code theme to resonate fully in the completion of Kat’s character arc at the end of the novel when she realizes that “[b]laming Meg for the lie that put me in Nate’s path was just a circumstance of chance, no more useful than blaming a lightning storm for a forest fire. Everything burned to a black pile of ash, until new growth can begin to emerge” (85). Kat doesn’t just realize that she was wrong to blame Meg; she sees her experience as a rebirth. The events may be connected, but they didn’t directly cause each other. It was Nate’s actions that led to Kat’s suffering, not Meg’s. This additional layer to the theme’s significance addresses a broader issue in society: not only should girls help one another but they should also not blame one another for men’s evil actions. Girl Code is about breaking the cycle of abuse, and Meg did that in honor of Kristen, and now that Kat is free of her notions that Meg is to blame, she is ready to take on a bigger challenge: taking down Nate, who is truly responsible for her suffering and trauma. The way these aspects of the theme scaffold throughout the final section to add nuance and complexity results in this significant development that makes both Kat and Meg’s respective character arcs feel complete, while bringing this theme to resonance with the others in the novel.