comment on theme

The theme of online interactions versus those that take place in reality is a nearly ubiquitous theme in the novel, drawing attention to the ways in which characters interact similarly and differently in each. Being that the novel is largely realistic in its portrayal of teenage life, the same attention can therefore be paid to the way in which the reader uses the same technology. Emails, texts, and online messages comprise a large part of the dialogue in the novel, and the stylistic choice to delineate them in a different format reflects the separation of online and real interactions.