Point of View

Maya’s Notebook, as the title suggests, is written entirely from the perspective of Maya Vidal, the protagonist. The novel is a manifestation of Maya’s diary, in which she writes her full life story, including her childhood but focusing mainly on the four years since the death of her grandfather. Thus the novel is told in the first person, and obviously her perspective is limited; though she recounts the meeting of her grandparents, that is because the story has been so often repeated it has become a personal fairy tale, rather than because Maya pretends she was actually there to witness it. She occasionally guesses at the inner thoughts of her grandparents, the two people she knew best in the world, but everyone else is opaque to her, much to her chagrin. In particular, Manuel and Daniel remain enigmas to Maya, and she is...