PS: I Hate You

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual content, illness, and death.

Twenty-six-year-old Maddie Sanderson fakes an errand and hides in the supply closet during her brother Josh’s wake. He recently died from cancer, just three months before his 30th birthday. Maddie believes the wake her influencer mother, Cecilia, arranged and broadcasted on her social media platforms is an “over-the-top mourning ritual he never asked for” (3).

Maddie’s hiding place is discovered by her brother’s best friend, Dominic Perry, whom she is not thrilled to see. She’s avoided him since their awkward encounter when she was 19; they spent a few weeks together during the summer Dom and his long-term girlfriend, Rosaline, broke up. Maddie, who had a crush on Dom for years before this, believed the relationship meant more than it did and was heartbroken when Dom got back together with Rosaline, whom he later married. Maddie has resolved to never become vulnerable with Dom again, so when he expresses concern over her well-being, she dismisses him.

Dom reveals that Josh named him executor of his will. Maddie is offended, believing that for some reason her brother didn’t trust her to execute his affairs herself.