Point of View

The novel’s narration is written in the present tense and the first person from Korede’s point of view. Korede is the sole narrator and point-of-view character in the novel. Thus, the reader has access to all of Korede’s relevant thoughts and emotions as they occur at any given point in the story. Korede’s perspective is constantly characterized by distress and internal tension between conflicting personal imperatives. On one hand, covering up her sister’s murders is immoral and only enables her sister to commit more murders. However, this moral imperative is consistently overridden by Korede’s sense of familial obligation to her sister. Korede has been told since childhood that she is responsible for helping and protecting Ayoola, and that social conditioning has led to an unhealthy and destructive form of familial obligation.

Although the novel never directly conveys the perspectives...