Point of View

We All Want Impossible Things is written from the first person point of view of the main character Ash. By writing the novel from Ash’s first person perspective, the author is able to inhabit and to immerse the reader within Ash’s internal experience throughout. At the same time, by writing the novel from Ash’s first person perspective, the author is centralizing Ash’s emotional and psychological work to not only confront Edi’s imminent death, but to eventually accept and heal from it. Ash’s point of view therefore is the gateway into the author’s central thematic considerations and the novel’s primary conflicts.

Although Ash is actively watching her best friend die from cancer, her narration is not overly sappy, sorrowful, or sentimental. Rather, because Ash is a writer with a sardonic sense of humor, her first person narration consistently...