Point of View

The novel is written in first-person from two distinct viewpoints of Hetty Chapin and Byatt Winsor. The girls were students at the Raxter School for Girls just off the coast of Maine when a mysterious plague strikes every living thing on the island. Most of the novel is presented from Hetty's perspective, but the perspective changes to Byatt after she is taken from the Raxter campus to a make-shift medical facility on the island. Because of the limited perspective, the reader would not know what is happening to Byatt while she is separated from Hetty, which is why the author chose to use a second perspective.

The limited perspectives mean the characters do not know what other characters are thinking or feeling. The situation involving supply deliveries to the island is a prime example of that. Several times each week, a teacher named Welch and...