Point of View

The novel is narrated from the point of view of Pearl. A fourteen-year-old girl with a tendency toward magical thinking that she inherited from her mother, Margot, who was a dreamy woman that had been forced to inhale gas from the kitchen stove when she was young, Pearl is a poetic and unconventional narrator with a strange relationship to words and stories. As such, she tells the story of her life in her own terms. From the very first page, it is clear that Pearl’s voice is essential to the novel: “My mother was a cup of sugar. You could borrow her anytime. My mother was so sweet, her hands were always birthday-party sticky. Her breath held the five flavors of Life Savers candy. And she knew all the love songs that are a university for love” (3). Here, we see that Pearl’s perspective...