Point of View

Tate deploys a notable and unconventional point of view for much of her novel, opting to present her narrative through the lens of a collective (or "we") narrator comprised of a group of young girls. The use of this collective narration allows Tate to examine and critique the ways in which groups of children, and particularly groups of girls, participate in a cultish, peer-pressure-oriented style of groupthink that plays into broader systemic factors such as class and gender. Brutes also balances the chapters narrated in collective voice with six chapters of first-person singular, each devoted to a different member of that group as an adult.

Tate's decision to employ a collective narrator has considerable bearing on the thematic and dramatic developments in the novel, as it allows her to examine the ways in which broad cultural factors tend to create a kind of monolithic thinking...