Point of View

There are two points of view in the novel: Marian's and Hadley's. Marian's story is narrated primarily in the third-person past tense. Hadley's story is narrated primarily in the first-person present tense. The past tense nature of Marian's story lends it a sense of historical accuracy (even though the novel is fiction). This is important because in Hadley's story, Marian's journey is framed in the past. It is as if the reader is reading a historical account of Marian's life that Hadley herself might read. The present tense nature of Hadley's story lends it a degree of immediacy and thus brings the reader's perspective closer to Hadley's own experience. This makes her character more empathetic than she otherwise might be, especially in contrast to Marian.

The reader is estranged from Marian more so than Hadley because of the distance associated with third-person, past tense narration...