Point of View

This novel uses a third-person omniscient narrator that consistently and fluidly switches between the perspectives of several different characters, namely, the five central women of La Proa, and also the singer Ariella Ocampo. In a select number of passages, the narration even slips from the third person into the first person. For example, a scene that features a discussion between Ariella and Anita begins in the third person: “’I don’t know,’ Ariella said, immediately feeling stupid because it probably hadn’t been a question, and also because what she’s just said wasn’t true; she did know” (162). However, a few sentences later, the narrative perspective slips into the first person, with Ariella narrating: “I said nothing then, because, Venus, I was too foolish, I didn’t yet understand anything, but the conversation would swim inside me for years and later give birth to...