Point of View

The novel is written in third person but is limited to Raymie Clark's perspective. That limitation means the reader only knows what Raymie knows, which gives the author the opportunity to keep Raymie's final discovery a secret until Raymie learns it. She believes, throughout the first part of the novel, that her life will be fine if her father will just contact her. She believes she will be excited to talk to him, and the reader is led to believe that will be the case. When he does finally call, Raymie discovers that she has nothing to say to her father after all. That is the first hint the reader has that Raymie will not actually want to talk to him.

Raymie's perspective seems honest. She is truthful with her feelings, though she sometimes expresses them in unusual ways. For example, she says that her...