Shattering Glass

Rob is new to B’Vale his senior year, but he immediately becomes the most popular guy in school because of his charisma and good looks. All the girls in school desire him and it seems that he always gets his way, whether with his friends or teachers. Even when he does something wrong, whether it’s being late for class, lashing out unexpectedly at one of his friends, or even murdering Simon Glass, he always finds a way out of consequence.

Although Rob appears to be a suave on the outside, he is controlling and manipulative on the inside. His main obsession throughout the novel is getting Simon to take Lance’s place as the most popular guy in school. However, he manipulates everyone around him to achieve this goal. In this way, by the end of the novel, it’s revealed that he was never really anyone’s friend. Instead, he was just using Young, Coop, and Bob like pawns because of his need for control.

Of course, it can be inferred that Rob’s need for control stems from the fact that he was sexually abused by his own father for many years. While not many details are revealed about the actual events, a lot of emphasis is placed on Young and Rob’s shared sexual trauma, and how Young sees this as their unspoken bond.

While he was once the school’s most unpopular guy, Simon moves up the ranks of popularity thanks to Rob, Young, Bob, and Coop. While many of the characters experience change throughout the course of the novel, Simon’s is the most pronounced. Although his appearance physically changes due to a clothing and hair makeover and a diet and exercise routine, his personality reflects the most drastic transformation. Once quiet and submissive to physical and emotional abuse at the hands of peers, by the end of the novel Simon is outspoken, flirtatious, and exudes confidence.

Simon is an only child and lives in his own wing of his parents’ mansion. This means that he rarely sees his parents. Before being befriended by Coop and the others, Simon could best be described as lonely. His room, a technological menagerie, reflects how he transformed his loneliness into something lucrative: being the social outcast at school and never seeing his parents gave Simon the alone time to learn computer hacking. Just as Rob has a secret dark side, as evidenced by his violent outburst, so, too, does Simon have a secret manipulative side, as seen by the way he uses his computer skills to help and then blackmail Young.

Coop is the athlete of the group. B’Vale’s star football player, Coop is loved for his athletic abilities and is thought by his friends and peers to be slow-witted. His dad, once a star athlete himself, is now an emotionally-abusive alcoholic, and his mom abandoned him when he was young. Coop’s biggest fear for most of the novel is that he isn’t smart enough to pass the ACT, meaning he wouldn’t qualify for an athletic scholarship.

Coop’s big appetite is only matched by his big heart. Out of the friend group, Coop is the only one who ends up genuinely caring about Simon’s well-being. While Young and Bob are nice to Simon because of Rob, Coop becomes friends with Simon more independently. This is perhaps best demonstrated at the end of the novel, when Bob and Rob are beating Simon to death. Coop uses himself as a shield, attempting to save Simon from the blows.

While Coop doesn’t end up getting an athletic scholarship due to his extensive injuries from shielding Simon, he does go on to graduate from community college and becomes a fourth-grade teacher, proving that he was a lot smarter and more determined than his high school friends and peers gave him credit for. 

Bobster, also known as Bob, is the handsome one of the group. Known mostly for his good looks, Bob is considered fun to be around because he always has some wild girlfriend story or oddly astute insight. While Bob talks a big game, and seems to have multiple girlfriends and a propensity for fighting, he isn’t as tough as he makes himself out to be. This is best evidenced when Lance steals his beloved class ring. Rather than fight to protect the ring, Bob cowers and lets Lance take it. In fact, the only time the reader sees Bob fighting someone is when he hits Simon with a baseball bat. However, rather than demonstrating toughness, this moment reveals Bob’s cowardice: Bob doesn’t confront Simon with words regarding his secret dislike for him, and instead takes his anger out physically on a defenseless Simon. Bob’s cowardice is further revealed when he doesn’t take responsibility for Simon’s death and instead gets out of murder charges and jail time.

Ronna is Young’s girlfriend for a brief period. She is described as tall, thin, and generally attractive. However, more than her looks, Young says he was first attracted to her quick wit and intelligence. Ronna seems to really like Young, so much so that she goes to the first dance of the year with him, and eventually sleeps with him because she wants to show him how special he is to her. However, after Young agrees with Rob’s plan to dump her so that Simon can take her to the Favorite’s Dance, Ronna wants nothing to do with Young. Although she admits to crying every day after their breakup, revealing the loss she feels over losing Young, she tells him that he is essentially a broken people-pleaser.