Point of View

Most of this novel is told from the point of view of two different first-person narrators, Christian and Nina. Consider the opening sentence of Christian’s first section of narration: “Lily is sitting on the leather chair in the family room when I come in” (11). Christian refers to himself as “I” (11) just as Nina does in the opening sentence of her first section of narration: “I must have fallen asleep with the TV on” (16). The chapters alternate between Nina and Christian. The only exception to this pattern is the “Prologue” which appears to be narrated by Lily as it describes the attack in the woods.

Both Nina and Christian are biased and unreliable narrators. They are biased because they tell the story based on their own perception. Christian, for instance, is focused on keeping Lily out of jail. For this reason, he details the things...