Reunion at the SkyLoft

Mac, now Claire, is a successful academic attending a conference in Los Angeles. She unexpectedly encounters Gwen, her estranged best friend from grad school, in the hotel lobby. Their reunion is charged with nostalgia, envy, and unresolved tension. Both women have changed—Mac is ambitious and hardened, Gwen is elegant and seemingly content, but their old dynamic simmers beneath the surface. The encounter is awkward, with Mac feeling both pride and inferiority. They agree to have a drink, setting the stage for a night that will force them to confront the past and the secrets that drove them apart.

Pageant Princess to Protector

Mac's early life is defined by her mother's pageant ambitions and her father's eventual abandonment. When her father leaves, Mac is forced to grow up quickly, becoming the caretaker for her autistic sister, Lily, and her mother, who spirals into addiction. The family's decline is marked by poverty, shame, and Mac's fierce loyalty to Lily. Mac's resilience is forged in these years, but so is her sense of being an outsider, always striving for something better, always haunted by the fear of being left behind.

Gwen's Arrival, Mac's Escape

Gwen, a sophisticated transplant from New York, enters Mac's life in high school. Their friendship is immediate and intense, built on shared love of art films and intellectual curiosity. Gwen's privilege and effortless grace contrast with Mac's scrappy determination, but together they create a world of possibility. Gwen's family offers Mac a glimpse of stability and culture, but also a reminder of what she lacks. Their bond is deep, but the seeds of rivalry and insecurity are sown early, as Mac both idolizes and resents Gwen's advantages.

Kindred Spirits, Divergent Paths

As graduation approaches, Mac and Gwen's paths begin to diverge. Gwen is accepted to Columbia, a legacy, while Mac earns a scholarship to a local college. Their friendship is tested by distance and ambition. Gwen's world expands, while Mac's remains constrained by family obligations and financial hardship. Yet, Gwen's influence inspires Mac to aim higher, setting her sights on the prestigious "Program" for graduate studies. Their mutual support is genuine, but envy and longing simmer beneath the surface.

The Program's Seductive Promise

Mac and Gwen reunite as graduate students at Dwight Handler University's elite Program. The campus is a world of intellectual glamour and cutthroat competition. Mac is determined to prove herself, juggling a demanding job and overwhelming coursework. Gwen, as always, seems to glide through, but both are drawn into the orbit of charismatic professors—Bethany Ladd and Rocky Semyonovich. The Program promises transformation, but its pressures and politics begin to warp their friendship and sense of self.

Academic Games and Alliances

Mac becomes entangled with Bethany, a brilliant but manipulative professor who offers her an independent study and dangles the coveted Joyner Fellowship. Rocky, Bethany's husband, takes an interest in Gwen. The academic environment is rife with subtle power plays, sexual tension, and shifting alliances. Mac's need for approval and security makes her vulnerable to Bethany's attention, while Gwen's relationship with Rocky grows complicated. The boundaries between mentorship, friendship, and exploitation blur, setting up a dangerous game.

The Dinner Party Trap

Bethany and Rocky host a dinner party for Mac and Gwen, a night of excess and veiled threats. Alcohol flows, inhibitions drop, and the tangled web of relationships is exposed. Mac senses Gwen and Rocky's affair, while Bethany's interest in Mac turns physical. The dinner becomes a battleground for power and desire, with each character maneuvering for advantage. By night's end, betrayals are revealed, and the fragile trust between Mac and Gwen is shattered.

Rivalries, Secrets, and Betrayals

The aftermath of the dinner party leaves Mac and Gwen estranged, each nursing wounds and secrets. Mac's relationship with Bethany intensifies, becoming both a source of validation and a trap. Gwen's involvement with Rocky deepens, but is fraught with guilt and self-doubt. The competition for the Joyner Fellowship becomes a proxy war for their unresolved rivalry. Meanwhile, the Program's toxic culture claims casualties among their peers, as ambition and survival instincts override loyalty and compassion.

The Joyner Fellowship War

The battle for the Joyner Fellowship escalates, with Bethany manipulating Mac and Gwen to serve her own interests. Mac, desperate for security and recognition, compromises her values and becomes complicit in Bethany's schemes. Gwen, torn between love and ambition, is caught in the crossfire. The Program's power dynamics reach a breaking point, as secrets, blackmail, and academic politics converge. The cost of winning becomes increasingly clear, and the line between victim and perpetrator blurs.

Collapse and Consequence

A series of crises—Mac's family emergencies, Tess's expulsion, Bird's suicide—expose the Program's rot. The dinner party's fallout culminates in a violent confrontation at Bethany and Rocky's farmhouse. Rocky, drunk and enraged, attacks Bethany; Mac intervenes, and in the chaos, Rocky falls to his death. Gwen arrives just in time to witness the aftermath. The official story is self-defense, but the truth is murkier. The event destroys what remains of Mac and Gwen's friendship and sets off a chain reaction of scandal and cover-up.

The Night Everything Changed

In the wake of Rocky's death, Mac and Gwen are forced to navigate the investigation and their own complicity. Bethany manipulates the narrative to protect herself, while Mac hedges her testimony, keeping evidence in reserve as leverage. Gwen, traumatized and isolated, leaves the Program. The department implodes under the weight of scandal, with careers ruined and reputations destroyed. Mac survives, but at the cost of her integrity and relationships.

Aftermath and Reckoning

The Program collapses, its leaders disgraced. Mac wins the Joyner Fellowship, using her knowledge of Bethany's crimes as leverage. Gwen disappears into a life of privilege, while Mac reinvents herself as Claire, building a successful academic career. The cost of survival is high—Mac is haunted by guilt, loneliness, and the knowledge that her greatest achievements are built on betrayal and violence. The past lingers, unresolved, as Mac struggles to reconcile who she has become with who she wanted to be.

The Cost of Survival

Mac's professional triumphs—tenure, publications, financial security—are shadowed by the sacrifices she made. She provides for her family, but her relationships are hollowed out by mistrust and self-loathing. The lessons of the Program—ruthlessness, self-preservation, the primacy of power—have shaped her, but left her unable to love or be loved. The memory of Gwen, Bethany, and Rocky haunts her, a reminder of what was lost in the pursuit of success.

Truths Unveiled, Futures Claimed

At the Los Angeles conference, Mac and Gwen's chance meeting reopens old wounds. Their conversation, fraught with accusation and longing, brings their shared history into sharp relief. Gwen confronts Mac about Rocky's death, forcing Mac to admit her role. The truth is finally spoken, but offers no comfort—only the recognition that their friendship, and their innocence, are gone for good. Both women are left to reckon with the choices that defined them.

The Final Confrontation

On the hotel rooftop, Mac and Gwen's confrontation reaches its climax. Gwen accuses Mac of murder; Mac defends herself, but cannot escape the truth. Their rivalry, once a source of inspiration, has become a poison. Gwen rejects Mac's attempts at reconciliation, choosing to walk away and reclaim her own narrative. Mac is left alone, locked out, forced to confront the emptiness at the heart of her ambition.

Endings, Exiles, and New Beginnings

The fallout from the Program's collapse ripples outward—scandal, lawsuits, and the end of old alliances. Mac, now Claire, survives and even thrives, but at a profound personal cost. She provides for her family, but remains emotionally isolated. Bethany, disgraced and dying, delivers one final revelation: Mac's true parentage, a last twist of the knife. The story ends with Mac poised between past and future, haunted by what she has done, but determined to claim whatever power and freedom she can wrest from the wreckage.

Characters

Mac (Mackenzie Claire Woods / Claire)

Mac is the novel's protagonist, a woman forged by childhood abandonment, poverty, and the burden of caring for her autistic sister and addicted mother. Her drive to escape her circumstances makes her fiercely ambitious, but also deeply insecure and prone to envy. Mac's relationship with Gwen is both a lifeline and a source of pain—she idolizes Gwen's privilege and grace, but resents always being second best. In the Program, Mac's hunger for validation and security makes her vulnerable to manipulation by Bethany, and her willingness to do whatever it takes leads her to betray friends and compromise her integrity. Mac's psychological complexity lies in her simultaneous self-loathing and self-justification; she is both victim and perpetrator, desperate for love but unable to trust or accept it. Her transformation into Claire is an attempt at reinvention, but the past remains inescapable.

Gwen Whitney

Gwen is Mac's best friend and foil, a woman of beauty, intelligence, and effortless privilege. Raised in comfort, Gwen is generous and open-hearted, but also indecisive and prone to drifting. Her friendship with Mac is genuine, but tinged with unconscious condescension and a lack of understanding of Mac's struggles. Gwen's relationship with Rocky is an attempt to claim something for herself, but it ends in disaster. After the events at the farmhouse, Gwen is consumed by guilt and shame, ultimately choosing to leave the Program and retreat into a life of comfort. Gwen's psychological arc is defined by her struggle to reconcile her desire for goodness with the harm she causes, and her inability to escape the expectations of others.

Bethany Ladd

Bethany is the Program's star professor, a brilliant theorist whose mentorship is both seductive and destructive. She is a master of academic power games, using her influence to shape students' destinies and satisfy her own needs. Bethany's relationship with Mac is a toxic blend of mentorship, seduction, and exploitation; she recognizes Mac's hunger and uses it for her own ends. Bethany's own past is marked by trauma—an abusive marriage, blackmail, and a relentless drive for security. Her psychological complexity lies in her ability to justify her actions as necessary for survival, even as she destroys those around her. In the end, Bethany is both victim and villain, undone by the very games she taught her students to play.

Rocky Semyonovich (Pyotr)

Rocky is Bethany's husband and a professor in the Program, known for his charisma and sexual exploits. He is both a victim of Bethany's manipulations and a perpetrator of his own, preying on vulnerable students and seeking validation through conquest. Rocky's relationship with Gwen is genuine but doomed, as he is incapable of breaking free from destructive patterns. His psychological profile is marked by insecurity, self-loathing, and a desperate need for love and power. Rocky's death is the novel's turning point, exposing the rot at the heart of the Program and forcing the other characters to confront their own complicity.

Tess Filmore

Tess is one of the few Black students in the Program, a former TV producer who returns home to pursue the "life of the mind." She is sharp, skeptical, and unwilling to play the Program's games, which makes her a target for institutional racism and marginalization. Tess's refusal to be "special" or to accept Bethany's manipulative mentorship leads to her expulsion. Her psychological strength lies in her clarity and refusal to compromise her values, but she is ultimately sacrificed by a system that cannot tolerate difference or dissent.

Connor Yu

Connor is Mac and Gwen's friend, a witty and sensitive presence in the Program. He is drawn to Mac, but their relationship is complicated by miscommunication and Mac's emotional unavailability. Connor's desire for connection and meaning is thwarted by the Program's toxic culture, and he ultimately becomes another casualty of its collapse. His psychological arc is one of disillusionment and loss, as he realizes that loyalty and love are not enough to survive in a world built on ambition and betrayal.

Bird (Qassim ibn Burhan)

Bird is an older student in the Program, a former Joyner Fellow whose promise has curdled into despair. He is both a mentor and a cautionary tale, embodying the dangers of academic ambition and the cost of being "chosen." Bird's suicide is a pivotal event, exposing the Program's indifference to suffering and the emptiness of its rewards. His psychological profile is marked by alienation, longing, and a sense of having been used and discarded by those in power.

Mac's Mother

Mac's mother is a former beauty queen whose life unravels after her husband's departure. Her addiction and instability force Mac into the role of caretaker, shaping Mac's sense of responsibility and fear of abandonment. The mother's inability to provide security or love leaves Mac with deep wounds, but also a fierce determination to survive. Her psychological arc is one of regret and resignation, as she watches her daughter escape but cannot follow.

Lily Woods

Lily is Mac's autistic sister, a constant presence in her life and a source of both love and burden. Lily's needs shape Mac's choices and sense of self, anchoring her to the past even as she tries to escape. Lily's innocence and resilience offer a counterpoint to the novel's cynicism, reminding Mac of what is truly at stake.

Peter Armstrong

Peter is Mac's estranged father, revealed late in the novel to be Bethany's ex-husband and a key player in the Joyner Foundation's corruption. His abandonment shapes Mac's lifelong sense of inadequacy and longing. Peter's reappearance as a shadowy figure at the conference is a final twist, exposing the ways in which the past continues to shape the present. His psychological role is that of the ghost in the machine, the source of Mac's deepest wounds and the architect of her fate.

Plot Devices

Dual Timelines and Unreliable Narration

The novel unfolds in two interwoven timelines: the present-day reunion at the SkyLoft Hotel and the past events at the Program. Mac's narration is deeply subjective, colored by self-justification, denial, and selective memory. The use of blackout, flashbacks, and confessional dialogue creates ambiguity and suspense, forcing the reader to question what is true and what is rationalization. The structure mirrors the psychological fragmentation of the characters, as past and present collide in moments of crisis.

Academic Power Games and Mentorship

The Program is depicted as a microcosm of academic ambition, where mentorship is both a gift and a weapon. Professors like Bethany and Rocky use their power to shape, seduce, and destroy students, while students compete for favor and survival. The Joyner Fellowship serves as the ultimate prize, a symbol of validation and escape, but also a trap that ensnares those who seek it. The novel uses the language of academia—recommendations, independent studies, job talks—as both plot mechanics and metaphors for deeper psychological struggles.

Foreshadowing and Symbolism

The recurring imagery of jewelry (earrings, engagement ring), staircases, and the farmhouse serve as symbols of ambition, desire, and the cost of survival. The motif of "negation"—ethical, personal, and literal—runs throughout, culminating in acts of violence and self-destruction. The use of film references and allusions to classic literature (Beauty and the Beast, Much Ado About Nothing) enriches the narrative, offering ironic commentary on the characters' fates.

Confession and Confrontation

The novel's emotional climaxes are structured as confrontations—between Mac and Gwen, Mac and Bethany, Mac and herself. These scenes are charged with accusation, confession, and the desperate search for absolution. The rooftop scene, in particular, serves as both a literal and metaphorical high point, where the characters' secrets and resentments are laid bare, and the possibility of redemption is both offered and denied.

Analysis

Bad Habits is a razor-sharp dissection of the toxic culture of elite academia, but its true subject is the psychology of ambition and the corrosive effects of envy, trauma, and power. Through the intertwined stories of Mac, Gwen, and Bethany, the novel explores how systems built on competition and scarcity warp even the most intimate relationships, turning friendship into rivalry and mentorship into manipulation. The characters' struggles are both personal and systemic—Mac's hunger for security is inseparable from her class background, Gwen's paralysis from her privilege, Bethany's ruthlessness from her own history of abuse and survival. The novel refuses easy moral judgments: everyone is both victim and perpetrator, shaped by forces beyond their control but also responsible for their choices. The lessons are bleak but bracing—success often comes at the expense of others, and the pursuit of power can hollow out the self. Yet, in its unflinching honesty, Bad Habits offers a kind of dark wisdom: the only way out is through, and the only redemption lies in the willingness to see oneself clearly, even when the truth is unbearable.

Last updated: December 7, 2025