Point of View

"Missing May" is told in first person limited omniscience narration, through Summer's perspective, meaning that the story is filtered through Summer's thoughts and dialogue, and the reader is only directly privy to Summer's thoughts and emotions. This point-of-view is very important to the novel as the reader gains insight into Summer's fears and desires, which are important for the reader to understand Summer's character development and emotional growth. For the most part, Summer is a reliable narrator - meaning that she doesn't directly lie to or mislead the audience - but some of her motivations are clearly questionable. It is obvious to the reader that Summer dislikes Cletus because she fears he might steal Ob away from her, but Summer herself doesn't recognize the motivation for her deep dislike, which colors some of her narration as misleading, although not intentionally. Without insight into Summer's thoughts, the...