Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Whenever Mclean enters a new town, she creates a new identity and a new online account to go with it:
I liked this feeling so much that, when we moved to Petree, our next place, it took it further, calling myself Lizbet and taking up with the drama mamas and dancers […]
The strangest thing about all of this was that, before, in my old life, I hadn't been any of these things: not a student leader or an actress or an athlete. There, I was just average, normal, unremarkable. Just Mclean. (1.30-31)
These profiles don't represent the real Mclean—they're all fronts for the persona she's trying to create. She doesn't feel safe being herself, so she just creates a whole new personality with a name and interests to match.
All of these accounts represent how confused Mclean is about her identity—she doesn't really know how to be herself anymore. She tells us:
In my head, it went off in a million directions—I'm not that girl anymore. I'm not sure who I am—each of them only leading to more complications and explanations. (13.65)
In Lakeview though, Mclean starts to learn how to be comfortable in her own skin without creating a different personality. She makes friends for real reasons and even goes by her real name. It's not much, but it's a start. And when her Lakeview crew discovers her laundry list of fake identities, though Mclean panics, they assure her they love her for who she is—and for the first time in a long time, Mclean believes it.