Dessen tells the story of the novel through a first-person narrator, Caitlin O'Koren. At the same time, however, she imbues Caitlin with a limited omniscience, in that Caitlin is telling the story in the past tense, and thus has the aid of foresight to tell the back story behind the action. By gaining a sense of perspective through the passage of time, the narrator is able to give a fuller picture of the events in the novel. This, in turn, allows the reader to gain a greater understanding of the possible motivations of all of the characters in the book.

One example of this is in the way Caitlin describes her mother's behavior after Cass left home for New York City instead of enrolling at Yale. Throughout the book, Caitlin derides her mother by mentioning the way she seems to come alive only when she is...