Point of View

The point of view in Everything I Never Told You is third person. The narrator focuses attention on all five of the Lees and therefore anchors the story with the family as opposed to the police or other characters like Jack or Louisa. The narrator is omniscient and all-knowing, and the reader learns to trust him or her right away from the opening lines where the reader receives the privileged information that the Lees do not know yet, that Lydia is dead. Given this, the narrator can be considered trustworthy and reliable. Allowing the reader to see and know everything, including the characters' secret feelings and actions, the point of view lets the reader make his or her own judgment of who or what was responsible for Lydia's suicide. This knowledge gives the reader the power to see Lydia's fate as a result of forces...