Point of View

The novel is written from the third-person point of view. This third-person narrator possesses an omniscient capacity, which means that she is able to access all of the characters’ interior worlds. Throughout the novel, the narrator alternates between inhabiting the characters’ consciousnesses and therefore presenting their private, mental and emotional experiences amidst ongoing descriptions of their physical surroundings. For example, in the chapter “Rachel Doricko vs. Kate Heffer,” the narrator alternates between presenting sequences from Rachel’s perspective and sequences from Kate’s perspective. In one passage, the narrator says that Kate is thinking that “Everything in my life has been leading up to this moment” (60). A few pages later, the narrator shifts away from Kate and turns her attention to Rachel, revealing that Rachel is thinking, “I’m a wildfire” (63). These movements between the various contestants’ head spaces capture the overlaps and derivations in...