Raina's Home

Raina’s home is the setting for the majority of the memoir. Assumed to take place in Oakland, California based on Raina’s Dad’s shirts, Raina’s home, like the other settings, is a setting that also evolves as Raina learns how to deal with her ongoing anxiety. The setting of home is important to prove that not even at home surrounded by her family is Raina safe from her fears and anxieties. The memoir opens at home as Raina vomits next to her mother. Her house is obviously full as from the beginning she climbs down from bunkbeds and even shares a single toilet with her mother. She explains, “Our house was awfully small. Impossible to get much privacy” (30).

Raina at first seems to have her own problems with vomit or her stomach, but soon this spreads as she realizes that others can make her...