Point of View

The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is written from the main character Maali Almeida’s point of view. However, instead of employing the first person point of view, the author employs the second person point of view. Therefore, all of Maali’s first person personal pronouns are replaced with second person pronouns. The novel is not written in the direct address. Therefore, when Maali uses the second person pronouns, they are self-referential. The author introduces this atypical approach to point of view within the opening lines of the novel’s opening section, “First Moon”: “You wake up with the answer to the question that everyone asks. The answer is Yes, and the answer is Just Like Here But Worse. That’s all the insight you ever get” (3). In these lines, the second person pronouns appear unattached to an exact individual. It is not until Maali...