Meet the Austins is a first-person narrative. Although it is not clear why or under what circumstances Vicky is telling the story, L'Engle effectively captures the tone of a teen-aged girl; Vicky and her siblings talk like real people.

Vicky is aware of how she speaks as a narrator, occasionally commenting if one of her sentences gets complicated or confusing. The loosely plotted story consists of a series of events in the life of a family that reveals the maturation of certain characters. The children are not perfect, and readers see their faults as well as their virtues as they argue with one another one minute and stick up for one another the next. The result is a picture of a warm and human family.