Point of View

Black Bird, Blue Road is told in the third-person limited point-of-view through the perspective of Ziva. This narrative decision is really important in understanding the stages of grief since Ziva herself goes through each one of them from denial in the beginning to acceptance by the end. By focusing on her internal voice and unique perspective, the author can really make the reader sympathize with her. This is especially true when Ziva begins to confront why she is so desperate to save Pesah. She loves her brother so much that she cannot imagine how she will survive without him. Since the reader has been in her head the entire novel, they believe and understand this clearly.

This limited viewpoint also allows the author to hide key details that change Ziva’s perspective from the reader before Ziva herself learns about it. The biggest example of...