Point of View

The novel is narrated in the first person by three different point-of-view characters: Amy, Sylvie, and Ma. Amy narrates in the present tense, Sylvie narrates in the past tense, and Ma narrates in the past tense. Sylvie’s chapters recount her experiences in Holland, and Amy’s chapters recount her own experiences in Holland the following month, as she searches for Sylvie. Ma’s chapters are brief and relatively infrequent, but in them, she recounts to the reader salient backstory details about her life and the lives of some of the other characters. As the novel continues, these perspectives eventually converge to contain a fuller picture of each other’s lives, as information is gathered and secrets are revealed. The novel uses these juxtapositions to highlight the secrets between the family members and the inherently destructive effects of keeping such secrets.

The novel also distinctly...