Olive Riley is a supporting character in the novel Dream On, Ramona Riley by American bi author Ashley Herring Blake. She is the younger sister of the protagonist, Ramona Riley. The novel Dream On, Ramona Riley centers around the relationship between Ramona Riley, an ordinary young woman from a small town, and the notorious Hollywood actress Dylan Monroe, who comes to the town to film a rom-com.
As a character, Olive is portrayed as a kind, emotionally sensitive teenager who is very close to her sister and still trying to understand herself and her future.
Olive’s bi identity becomes explicit in the epilogue of the novel, when the narration states:
Olive had had a great first year at Vanderbilt, had fallen in love, come out as bisexual. Ramona couldn’t be happier for her.
Before this moment, Olive spends most of the novel assuming that she is straight, despite hints that she may have feelings for her openly gay best friend, Marley. Ramona and several other queer people from their hometown Clover Lake also suspect that Olive may be queer long before Olive realizes it herself. The novel presents this as a realistic example of how some young bi people need time to understand their sexuality, even in relatively accepting environments.
Olive grows up around openly queer people. Her older sister Ramona is openly bi, and Ramona doesn’t avoid discussing sexuality or queer relationships around her. Therefore, Olive is not raised in a strongly homophobic environment, yet heteronormativity still shapes the way she understands herself. Even at eighteen, she struggles to recognize her attraction to girls as part of her identity.
Olive’s bi identity is still new to her by the end of the novel. She doesn’t have the same confidence or experience as the older queer characters around her.
But Olive Riley is a meaningful example of bi representation because the novel depicts her bi self-discovery as a gradual, sometimes confusing process rather than a dramatic revelation. Her story shows how even young people raised in a queer-acceptant culture may still need time to understand their bisexuality fully.