Coming of Age

Turtle’s story is a coming of age story as she matures to realize the truth about her father’s abuse. Turtle comes to understand that she must respond to her father’s abuse different when it begins to impact people she cares about and not her alone. She also realizes that allowing her father to continue to abuse her has possible physical and emotional ramifications.

The Turtle who appears in the opening of the novel does not yet fully understand that what her father does to her is abuse. Turtle loves her father dearly and believes that he treats her as he does in order to make her a better person. She does note the beginning of her realization that something is wrong in their relationship when she notes that there is something in her father that is “something less than careful” (40). She...