Constance, who had always wanted to be an actress, settles down as a home maker, but becomes a stage mother, forcing Vivienne to participate in beauty pageants as a child.

He gets Edith a job with a woman named Serena who runs a business dealing in antique coins.

While there Edith meets and develops a crush on Liam Livingstone, a college student who is also originally from Ottawa who is fascinated by Vivienne.

Vivienne begins dressing like a punk and dates a high school boy named Nick Angel who introduces her to drugs.

Vivienne quits her last year of high school and begins living and working in Chinatown, Ottawa.

Nevertheless, Liam, who continues to fund Vivenne's lifestyle in Vancouver, eventually grows exhausted with her as she slides into alcoholism.

Edith, who has spent her entire adolescence overweight, finally loses all the weight due to not eating from grief and decides to forgo university for college.

Edith gets a degree in Museum Studies and manages to wrangle a job at the National Gallery of Canada where her father always longed to have his works exhibited.

Liam informs Edith that he's coming back to Ottawa to teach and she offers to let him stay with her until he finds a place.

In the course of searching for her Edith learns that she lied about going on a doctor-approved retreat, that she had quit her job and that she had maintained a relationship with Nick Angel and that they had been together on and off since they were teenagers.

Edith never gives up hope of once again finding Vivienne and begins to work on helping to feed local drug addicts.

A year after Vivienne's disappearance Edith returns to Lake Louise to scatter her father's ashes, hoping to see a unicorn again.

[3] The review from The National Post was more mixed calling the novel "undercooked" while still praising Berkhout for choosing "all the right subjects".