Point of View

The novel is told from the first person point of view of Susan. Susan narrates the story of her pregnancy, so everything that the reader has access to is filtered through Susan’s perspective. Susan is a highly judgmental woman, so the characters that she does not approve of, such as Edward, are portrayed as terrible through and through. While other characters occasionally say nice things about Edward, Susan never narrates anything kind or redeeming about him until the very end of the novel. Her conviction that he has manipulated their mother into giving him the house colors the reader’s experience of Edward as a character, though it turns out in the end that he did not do any such thing.

Susan shows herself to be an unreliable narrator from the very start of the novel. She attempts to convince the reader, and herself...