Point of View

Rosie Walsh uses three narrators throughout The Love of My Life: Leo, Emma, and Janice. Each narrator tells their story in a first-person perspective. In Part 2, Emma narrates her chapters under her original name, Emily. Walsh alternates narrators through each part of the novel. Emma has the most chapters, narrating for approximately half of Part 1, most of Part 2, and half of Part 3. Janice has the least chapters, with one chapter in Part 1, and several chapters in the second and third parts.

Emma is an unreliable narrator in Part 1. She tells her story in present tense in the first and third parts of the book. Emma often speaks in pronouns without antecedents. This is a deliberate misdirect on the author’s part, as Emma uses language that would insinuate a romantic relationship between her and the man to which she is referring. The reader later discovers...