Point of View

“Sweet Tooth” by Ian McEwan is told in the first person from the perspective of the protagonist, Serena Frome (rhymes with plume). The book starts out in 2012 when the now elderly Serena reflects back to her youth when she was hired by the British Secret Service also known as MI5. Serena is a twenty-two year-old recent graduate from Cambridge where she majored in mathematics, an unusual choice for girls in the early 1970s. She had become involved with an older man who recommended her for the service.

The reader is privy to the thoughts and motivations of the young girl who unwittingly finds herself in a world of spies and, at that time, mainly male spies. Her reactions to the veteran security officers she encounters are through the young and unsophisticated eyes of a young girl who was more interested in finding a boyfriend than...