Grief

Grief has the potential to overwhelm one to the point of losing oneself to said sorrow. At the novel’s beginning, Paige found herself overwhelmed as such. Through the process of gardening, Paige discovered room for dedication to other aspects of her life than all-consuming grief. After realizing she held a secret, Paige thought: “It felt good to hold something inside that didn’t have anything to do with grief” (99). In this moment, Paige began to note changes that she was undergoing. Once Paige learned to live with her loss, she began again living in the present, allowing herself to accept change.

Nyhan employs several stylistic techniques to demonstrate the lack of agency one feels while in the process of grieving. Firstly, Nyhan personifies grief as “a dirty street fighter who rose again and again even when [Paige] thought [she] had successfully knocked it to the...