Point of View

The novel is narrated from the main character Ellie’s first person point of view. Because Ellie is the first person narrator, her thoughts and feelings dictate the contours of the narrative world and act as the propelling force behind the narrative trajectory. Ellie’s relationship with her father and her response to his unexpected death therefore become the novel’s central conflicts. In Chapter 1, Ellie says that, “I was the most adult I’d ever been, but, then again, I’d been playing an adult even when I was nine, holding myself stiff with maturity, coaxing my father to talk about marriage, money, and responsibility” (7). The reader might rely upon this moment in order to understand Ellie’s character and thus her approach to telling her story. She is living an independent life in Washington D.C., working “an entry-level journalism job at a...