Imogen Scott is the fictional high school senior protagonist of Becky Albertalli‘s 2023 contemporary YA romance, Imogen, Obviously. Set in upstate New York, the novel follows Imogen as she begins the story convinced that she’s “the straightest of the straight,” only to have her worldview shaken during a weekend visit to her best friend Lili’s college. Surrounded by new people and diverse expressions of queerness, Imogen embarks on a quest of sexual self-discovery.
As a character, Imogen lives deeply inside her own head. When she’s not lost in thought, she dedicates herself to supporting her queer friends and family — particularly her two best friends, pansexual Lili and bisexual Gretchen. Well-versed in queer discourse and eager to examine her own biases, she actively participates in queer spaces like her high school’s Pride Alliance. Yet for all her awareness, Imogen remains blind to her own desires, a trait Albertalli described as “oblivious” in a 2023 interview with The Nerd Daily.
Imogen’s people-pleasing nature drives much of the plot. When Lili confesses that she lied to her college friends, claiming she and Imogen dated and that Imogen is bisexual, attempting to compensate for feeling inexperienced in her pansexuality. Imogen agrees to maintain the charade rather than make waves. But as she spends more time with Tessa, one of Lili’s queer friends, she begins questioning whether Lili’s lie might contain an unexpected truth.
Albertalli crafted Imogen’s relatability through extensive character development, telling Audible’s blog in 2023 that her “lovable” quality stems from detailed backstory work. This authenticity resonates because Imogen’s story mirrors Albertalli’s own bi awakening. In a HarperCollins blog post, the author recalled dismissing her early queer attractions as anomalies: “A girl from after-school dance. One from gym class. Never a crush, though. Always just a random anomaly.” Like Imogen, Albertalli only recognized her bisexuality when these “anomalies” became too numerous to ignore.
The novel particularly shines in depicting how even someone immersed in queer culture can overlook their own queerness. As Albertalli explained to Audible, Imogen’s dedication to allyship ironically reinforces her heterosexual self-conception. Because she didn’t recognize her attractions earlier, unlike Gretchen or her lesbian sister Edith, Imogen doubts their validity. Albertalli attributes this confusion to compulsory heterosexuality, bi erasure, and biphobia, noting that while Imogen’s story differs from hers, they shared similar emotional journeys: “Putting these thoughts on the page helped me understand and unpack them.”
Throughout the novel, Imogen gradually questions and ultimately dismantles the rigid heterosexual identity she’d constructed — a process that feels both profoundly personal and universally relatable to anyone who’s discovered themselves later than expected.