Lulu begins as a very good older sister then becomes a very bad one.

The tragedy at the theater distorts her character into the twisted opposite of her intrinsic good nature, and her warped personality highlights a novel of opposites. Cormier has created a tale that disturbs because those who are good often commit actions that are bad, and nearly every person and event is unsettling because they contain opposites of themselves. This makes the novel thought-provoking to an unsettling degree; for instance, when Dave kills his sister he does a good deed by saving Denny, but he also commits the heinous deed of murder. Was the murder necessary? Was there no alternative? The questions may be many, but answers are only found after much thought. This presentation of complex opposites is the novel's great strength because Cormier uses it to enrich his characters, whose very...