Lola Leung

Lola Leung is Henry Page’s lifelong neighbor and one of his two best friends, a perceptive and outspoken presence whose loyalty takes both comic and practical forms. At seventeen, she is also a school-recognized face, an artist, and a lesbian in a long-distance relationship with Georgia. Her importance lies not in a single plot-driving decision but in the steadiness with which she sees Henry clearly, supports his ambitions, and insists that friendship sometimes means telling him to stop making matters worse.

Identity and Background

Lola is seventeen, dark-skinned, dark-eyed, and dark-haired, with her hair cropped short. She describes herself through her mixed Chinese and Haitian heritage and her identity as a lesbian: her father is Chinese and her mother Haitian. At school, she is repeatedly selected for promotional material, appearing in places such as the yearbook cover, the school billboard, its website, and library bookmarks. The recurrence makes her a conspicuous public representative of the school, even as her friendship with Henry belongs to the private, everyday history of people who have known one another all their lives.

Her closeness with Henry predates the novel’s central relationships. Three years earlier, they shared a first kiss. Two weeks afterward, Lola came out as a lesbian and began a long-distance relationship with Georgia, who lived in the next town. Other people treated the sequence as a joke about Henry’s kissing, and he admits that he was still trying not to take the teasing personally. The episode establishes both the ease with which the friends joke about intimacy and the limits of Henry’s self-centered interpretation: Lola’s identity and relationship are hers, not an explanation of his romantic prospects.

A Lifelong Friendship with Henry

Lola’s familiarity with Henry is practical as well as affectionate. When she was eleven, after getting into trouble with her father over a word she had shared during an English lesson at the YMCA, she ran away to Henry’s house. The two hid under his bed, eating Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and looking at pictures on Sadie Page’s laptop. It is a small childhood episode, but it conveys the refuge their homes and friendship provide for each other, and the long history behind Lola’s ability to read Henry without requiring him to explain himself.

That fluency remains visible when Henry first becomes preoccupied with Grace Town. Lola asks him about the girl he had chased, and when he explains that Grace had been offered the newspaper editorship but declined it, Lola immediately objects to the prospect of Henry losing the position. She is ready to refuse the design work if he is not in charge. Once she learns that the editorship was offered to both of them and that Grace turned it down because she no longer writes, Lola’s indignation gives way to curiosity about Grace’s reasons. Her response is protective of Henry, but it does not prevent her from becoming interested in the person he is pursuing.

After Lola sees Grace leave, she tells Henry that she likes her and senses something compelling about her. Henry says nothing, but Lola understands his nod as an admission that he likes Grace too. Their wordless exchange distills the friendship: Lola does not need Henry to make a polished confession before recognizing what he feels. Her insight is affectionate, though it also places her close enough to his developing attachment to witness its consequences.

Grace Town and Lola’s Creative Work

Lola’s interest in Grace becomes visible through both observation and art. In early October, she asks Grace and Henry to model as guides for cartoons she is drawing for art class. At dusk, she photographs them on an empty football field, encouraging increasingly ridiculous poses. Grace cannot manage one of the requested poses because of her mobility limitations, but the session ends with all three laughing on the grass. The photographs capture a moment of shared ease rather than a formal portrait.

One black-and-white photograph shows Henry with his eyes closed and a small smile while Grace, her arm around his neck, laughs toward the camera. Henry hides the image in his biology textbook, embarrassed by how much it matters to him. Later, he finds another of Lola’s photographs displayed by Grace’s desk: it shows the two of them in a playful, affectionate pose that makes them appear unlike the awkward versions of themselves Henry assumes they are. Lola’s camera thus gives Henry a view of their closeness that he has not yet been able to accept on his own. Her art does not create their relationship, but it makes a possible version of it visible.

Lola is also present when Henry and Grace’s connection becomes harder to conceal. At a gathering, Grace and Georgia leave together, and Lola confirms that she noticed the hand-holding between Henry and Grace. Henry asks Lola to give him and Grace privacy because he thinks something is happening. Her brief acknowledgment shows that she has already registered the change in their behavior; she is an observant friend, not merely a participant in Henry’s interpretation of events.

Counsel, Conflict, and Newspaper Work

Lola’s loyalty is not unconditional agreement. When Henry and Murray Finch are both behaving badly in the aftermath of romantic disappointment, Lola confronts them directly. She tells Henry to complete his essays on time and stop fixating on a girl who never asked him to love her; she tells Murray that months of his conduct toward another person are enough and that he should leave her alone. The rebuke joins emotional judgment to everyday responsibility. Lola does not treat heartbreak as a license to neglect schoolwork or disregard someone else’s boundaries.

Her practical involvement extends to the Westland Post. On the day before her birthday, she presses Henry to choose a theme for the paper, insisting that he settle on a single word. He opens a dictionary and lands on fail. Later, when Henry organizes a last-minute effort to produce the paper’s redemption issue, Lola helps Sadie lay out the promised snacks and takes a place with Henry on the office’s couch as the volunteers gather on the floor. Her participation links her earlier role in pressing Henry to make an editorial choice with her later willingness to help turn a deadline into collective work. She is not simply the friend who comments from the sidelines: she helps make the paper’s production possible.

Narrative Role

Lola provides a counterpoint to the uncertainty surrounding Henry and Grace. She can tease Henry about his fixation, recognize his feelings before he voices them, and still challenge him when affection becomes obsession or irresponsibility. Her own life is not reduced to her role in his romance: her heritage, school visibility, art, relationship with Georgia, and long history with Henry give her an identity beyond that of a confidante.

The novel repeatedly makes her attention tangible. She notices a glance, photographs a closeness Henry cannot yet name, and recognizes the meaning of a nod. Just as often, her care takes the form of work: defending Henry’s place on the newspaper, making him choose a theme, and helping prepare the newsroom for a difficult publication deadline. Lola’s friendship is therefore both interpretive and active. She helps Henry see what is happening, but she also expects him to take responsibility for what he does next.