Point of View

When the Moon Was Ours is told using a limited omniscient third-person narrator. The narration focuses on the thoughts and feelings of one character at a time, and alternates back and forth between focusing on Miel as the main character, and as Sam as the main character. Because of the main characters’ shared tendency to be poor verbal communicators, this third-person access to their thoughts and feelings dramatically changes the meaning and tone of a scene, even if it is a scene that both Miel and Sam are present in.

For instance, the chapter “Ocean of Storms” (130-134) describes the moment when Sam resigns his fate to the currents of the river. This chapter switches back and forth between the perspective of both characters. Since Sam and Miel have minimal verbal communication between one another in this scene, the switch in narration allows the reader...