Identity

Dani's discovery about her genetic parentage prompts an identity crisis which she must navigate throughout the entire book. The importance of identity and the crisis in which she finds herself is underscored in the very first chapter of the book. In that chapter, she looks in the mirror after getting her DNA results and repeated to herself over and over again: "You're still you" (3). This need to continually affirm the constancy of her identity actually speaks to how she feels that sense of self crumbling around her after having learned the truth about her genetic history. This, therefore, links the theme of identity to the theme of inheritance. The importance of inheritance in constructing her identity is reinforced when Dani writes: "These ancestors are the foundation upon which I have built my life. I have dreamt of them, wrestled with them, longed for them. I have tried to...