Point of View

The point of view is a focused, limited first-person narration. Unlike traditional first-person narration in which that perspective encourages sympathy, even empathy for the narrator, the point of view here is more conflicted. Because of the nature of her fascination with her own emotional ups and downs, how she believes that every moment of happiness will inevitably be rendered ironic and engender waves of sorrow or depression, the novel offers the sort of claustrophobic narrowing point of view typical of a diary. As Reuben, an ex-boyfriend, half-jokingly observes, the narrator believes her pain is special, her disappointments rare, her heartache exemplary. “You always think your pain is the most painful. You always think it’s uniquely awful” (213). The narrator is a self-professed diarist, addicted to explaining in detail her complex emotional experiences, her relationship with her lesbian ex-roommate, her volatile involvement with Ciaran, her one-night...