Penitence

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of substance use, addiction, child sexual abuse, child death, sexual assault, mental illness, child abuse, and illness. 

This novel’s examination of the complex nature of guilt and forgiveness is complex and connected both to its interrogation of the justice system and its depiction of fraught family dynamics. Each of the characters wrestles with both guilt and forgiveness, but Angie, Nora, and Julian stand out for the way that their stories speak to the novel’s larger thematic project. 

Angie is one of the novel’s most complex characters. Initially portrayed as a grieving mother struggling to forgive an incomprehensible act of violence, the narrative gradually reveals her as more morally complicated. At the beginning of the novel, it is evident that Nico was her favorite child and that she struggles to feel anything but anger for Nora. Although David, Martine, and even Julian feel compassion for Nora and worry that a juvenile detention facility is no place for such a young girl, Angie sees her as little more than a “criminal.” During one particularly heated conversation with David about Nora, she angrily tells him that “she’s not the victim” and that “no one has to be there for her” (29).