Point of View

All This Could Be Different is told in a first-person point of view by its narrator and protagonist, Sneha. This allows the narrative to center entirely on Sneha's own subjective experience, which is crucial to the novel's efforts to portray the various pressures and anxieties placed on her as a result of her status as an immigrant. Furthermore, Sneha is in many respects an unreliable narrator, prone to suppressing her emotions from her childhood, and the decision to narrate the story from her first-person perspective is therefore instrumental in Mathews' effort to accurately characterize her protagonist.

The focus of the novel on Sneha's experience allows the reader to understand not only the various obstacles she faces as she struggles to assimilate to life in Milwaukee, but also to note the ways in which her peers and colleagues often ignore or disrespect her particular set of...