Point of View

Paper Wife is told in the third person point of view at all times. The novel traces the journey of Mei Ling from her family’s ancestral village all the way to Oakland, California, but third person pronouns are used to describe her emotions and experiences throughout the novel, except in the epilogue, where Mei Ling speaks to the reader from the first person.

The book is also written in the past tense throughout, even in the brief epilogue. Historical fiction, especially that written for young adults, is highly variable in terms of perspective and tense, but Ibrahim is consistent in that she moves her plot forward in chronological order while maintaining a past tense narrative voice through her protagonist, Mei Ling. The consistency is comforting to the reader and allows for full immersion into the protagonist’s life: Mei Ling’s fear at the...