Unspeakable Things

“I’d been thirteen, not stupid, though a lot of people confuse the two.”

Cass’s internal monologue here reflects the narrative perspective of her older self. The diegetic observations of the main character are informed by the wisdom of the retrospective narrator. This early observation establishes the tension between children and adults the dominates the text.

“She was the only one who didn’t pretend I was normal.”

Cass feels very warmly toward her aunt Jin. Like many YA protagonists, Cass stubbornly clings to her self-identification as a quirky kid and revels in the conviction that she is different from and more interesting than her peers. While her parents and sister try to downplay the visual of her shocking scar, Aunt Jin embraces the scar and joins Cass in using dark humor to refer to it.

“If he kept drinking—this didn’t happen very often, but it happened—he’d look at me or Sephie in a way that felt like a monster had found your hiding spot, and Mom would say it was just best if we went to bed early and stayed there until the next morning.”

The abusive home environment of the McDowell family is deeply upsetting. The tense mood pervades the house and contributes to Cass’s perpetual feeling of being hunted in her own home. The unsettling atmosphere lends itself to her dad’s character development; he is described in such predatory terms that his daughters believe he may be a murderer.