Point of View

This story is told from the first person point of view of Riley, a gender fluid teen. The use of the first person point of view is significant because it allows the story to be told with no references to Riley’s gender. Had the story been told from the view of a third person narrator, some pronoun reference to Riley would have to be made, either through a gender specific pronoun referring to Riley’s anatomical sex or through the gender neutral pronoun "they."

Since Riley keeps their gender fluidity hidden for so much of the novel, there really would have been no adequate way for any other character in the novel to have told Riley’s story. Had any character than Riley, including a third person omniscient narrator, told the story the reader would not have felt as close to Riley. There would...