Pretty Ugly

Darcy is Jamee’s sister, who is known by everyone to be intelligent and studious. It is accepted that Darcy will go to college and have a bright future. She and Jamee do not have a close relationship. Jamee feels that Darcy is too concerned with schoolwork to care about Jamee’s problems. The distance between them results in Darcy being mostly peripheral to the story. She is characterized more by Jamee’s thoughts and others’ speech than she is by direct action or dialogue of her own. Jamee’s teachers and principal depict Darcy as gifted and dedicated. Her parents depict her as responsible and reliable. Vanessa depicts her as conservative and possibly prudish, saying, “You’re not like Darcy, who stays inside and skips parties to do her homework” (59). Within the narrative, Darcy is as defined by their differences as Jamee is. While Jamee comes home late, fights with their Aunt Charlotte, fails at school, and pursues cheerleading against her parents’ wishes, Darcy comes home on time, is polite to Aunt Charlotte, worries about their mother’s pregnancy and stress level, and is focused on getting into college and succeeding at life. Darcy serves as a foil for Jamee—a character whose own qualities highlight Jamee’s. 

When Darcy does act, she seems at a loss to handle Jamee’s differences. She, too, instructs Jamee to pay more attention to her schoolwork and encourages Jamee not to add to their mother’s burdens. She also presses Jamee about her grades and is upset when Jamee snaps back at her in public, then portrays Jamee as unreasonable in their fight after Niko’s. These actions contribute to the sense of Jamee not having any support at home, as Darcy doesn’t seem interested in Jamee beyond wanting her to behave and do better academically. Later in the text, Darcy is shown to have more sympathy and care for Jamee, as is seen when she attempts to defend her against their parents’ anger and frustration. Darcy is thus not entirely a static character but does show some dynamic growth in her recognition of Jamee’s non-academic accomplishments.

Vanessa is the antagonist of the book, a bully two years older than Jamee and Angel. She is motivated by a desire for attention and wanting to get picked for the cheerleading squad, but Jamee suggests to Angel that jealousy and anxiety fuel Vanessa’s cruelty: “[Y]ou remind them they ain’t as special as they think they are” (131). Throughout the book, Vanessa is described as showing off her beauty: performing her cheerleading routines with a bright smile, flipping and tossing her hair, and swinging her hips. These actions reveal her desire for attention, as do her bullying campaigns against Jamee and Angel. As the bullying progresses, the novel shows Vanessa as always at the center of a small group of people who seem to approve of her cruelty, either because they enjoy it or because they fear having it turned on themselves. 

When the attention that Vanessa receives is negative, she does not handle it calmly. This is seen when Angel implies her hair is made of cheap synthetic tracks and when Tasha, Kym, and Renita turn on her during the cheerleading meeting. As a character, Vanessa is static; she does not experience growth or a productive arc and ends the book with the same toxic energy with which she begins it. Her increasingly inappropriate targeting of Jamee and Angel loses her the support of her friends, but only when there are serious consequences threatened. There is no suggestion in the book that Vanessa has learned any lessons or changed in any important ways through the experience.