Point of View

The novel is written in first-person from the perspective of a ghost named Pearl Brownlow. Pearl is a reliable and honest narrator who reveals to the reader everything she knows. She is omniscient, meaning she can hear the thoughts and even the memories of the other characters of the novel, but her perspective is limited because she has to consciously seek out those thoughts. The perspective has to be limited in order for the author to create some plot twists near the end of the novel, so Pearl misses a major piece of information in the mind of Aunt Marion. Frankie believes her mother is dead but Aunt Marion knows she is actually in an asylum, though she does not reveal that until Frankie is 18. When they are in the asylum, Pearl realizes that she never looked through Marion's memories to discover this fact. While...