Point of View

This story is told by a first-person narrator. Beyah tells the story from her point of view. Consider the sentence: “I once asked my mother, Janean, why she keeps a picture of Mother Teresa on our living room wall” (1). Beyah refers to herself as “I” indicating that she is talking about herself as she narrates.

Beyah is a biased narrator who describes things based on her own experiences. For instance, Beyah describes her relationship with her father from her own point of view. She believes that they were never close, but learns when her father shows her a photo album of the things they did together when she was small that she is wrong.

Beyah’s first-person narration is important to the novel because it allows the reader to follow Beyah’s growth as she learns that not all rich people lack empathy and are...