Mazer uses poetic language throughout the book to develop the characters and to show how people feel. Liz was "a golden Buddha." If the sisters were desserts, "Liz would be cool pineapple sherbet; Tobi would be dark bittersweet chocolate."

Other examples of figurative language are as follows: A wind blew the last stars out. (p. 7) He had broken them apart as easily as snapping a stick in half. (p. 79) I hate it when spring gets gobbled up this way. (p. 154) His voice was as empty as the yogurt carton, air surrounded by plastic, the kind of voice you might use for a stranger. (p. 173) The sun looked "like a big smooth yellow egg." (p. 198) Seeing Davey after the break-up was "as shocking as opening a favorite book, a story you knew by heart, to find nothing there but empty pages."