Point of View

The novel is written from the first person point of view of the main character, Peak Marcello. Therefore, all of the narrative events and conflicts are depicted on the page according to how Peak experiences and processes them. At 14 years old, Peak is still coming of age. He has a lot to learn about himself and the world around him at the start of the novel. Throughout the Peak narrative, therefore, Peak’s first person account details both his external experiences and his internal modes of processing these experiences. His first person point of view is especially important, given that Peak is “trying to get [his] story down” in the two Moleskine notebooks that his English teacher Vincent gives him at the novel’s start (2). Vincent says that his “story can be based on [his] own life” or on “someone else’s life” (13). Given Peak...