Isobel, like any individual, is driven by various and different motivations. Every person has some sort of motivation, a goal or reason to live. Otherwise there is no point to life. Isobel's prime motivation is a need for acceptance, but she and therefore the readers, are more aware of her wish to be accepted by others than a desire to embrace her own identify. This happens throughout most of the book, and it is only in the last chapter, when she is to become a great writer, that she is consciously driven by a need to accept herself for the person she is.

It is in her relationship with her mother that Isobel first and most powerfully experiences rejection. Perhaps the most influential figure to a child, her mother abused Isobel with no valid reason other than what it seemed to be her own satisfaction. No...