It made me feel like the favored daughter.
-- Narrator (chapter 1)

Importance: Ellie devotes the majority of Chapter 1 to describing her relationship with her family. She uses scenes of her out of season holiday celebrations with her father, stepmother, and half-siblings by way of example. In this moment, a conversation with her father inspires her to reveal the way she regards herself in the context of her familial collective. Though her father has many children from his many marriages, Ellie has always seen herself as the favorite. This line is paramount to understanding Ellie's definition of love and thus her response to her father's passing. Throughout the chapters that follow, Ellie does everything in her power to prove that her father did indeed love her.

Don't take this as a referendum about his love for you . . .
-- Colette (chapter 2)

Importance: When Colette sits the family down to read Jim's will, Ellie fully expects that her father will have...