Point of View

Book of Night is primarily told in the third-person point-of-view. Throughout a majority of the novel, the narrator follows Charlie, both through her past experiences with Rand and her current attempts to defeat Salt. In both of these cases, Charlie’s unique voice is present in each chapter, and the reader is constantly aware of her feelings of resentment, guilt, and awareness of her bad decisions before she makes them. Furthermore, it is clear that the story is being told at some point in the future. For example, in all of the chapters focused on Charlie’s past, the narrator mentions things she should have noticed or how others should have reacted to certain events. When she first meets Rand, the narrator says, “Much later, she would realize that her mother shouldn’t have been okay with that. Twelve-year-old girls didn’t have any business...