Point of View

The novel is told, for the most part, in the first person and the past tense. Leia is the protagonist of the novel and she is also its narrator. Because of this, all the action that takes place in the book is filtered through her gaze and relayed to the reader through her voice. While the novel concerns several generations of her family and the problems that each of them face, Leia is center-stage throughout all of it and no other perspectives are offered. And so, although much of the book’s plot is concerned with Rachel’s fractured marriage, Lavender’s missing father, and Birchie’s dementia, the novel is designed in a way that all of these major life struggles are turned into side-plots in a book that is largely about Leia’s struggle to balance work, family obligations, and impending motherhood. Rachel...