Two books that illuminated my POV crisis

Plus books about all-women communities and authors sharing their favorite Austen novels

I can’t stop thinking about point of view. Recently I read

Rebecca Makkai

’s essay on POV disorder as well as

Brandon

Taylor’s piece about first-person narration. These essays lifted the veil over my eyes and allowed me to more clearly see point of view in the fiction I’m reading. POV is so interesting because, as a reader, I rarely consciously think about it while I’m reading and certainly after finishing a book I’m hard pressed to identify what POV the author used. And yet I know from writers and critics that POV is one of the foundational choices an author makes. It’s a determining and even limiting factor that goes on to effect so many of the artistic choices they make within a novel. This is why “Narrating” is the first chapter of the James Wood classic How Fiction Works.

Because I’ve been thinking so much about this it was particularly interesting to put together a lecture on point of view that

Chelsey Feder

and I presented to our Novel Pairings Classics Club (if you’re interested in the replay, you can access this by joining our Patreon community at the Literature Scholar level). Reading and thinking about the benefits and criticisms of various perspective choices was illuminating, and I finally realized that many of my most common complaints about the books I don’t enjoy come down to POV issues.

I’m planning to write more about this at some point, but I’m teasing it today because both of the books I read this week have, in my opinion, POV issues—or at least they have things that annoy me that are rooted in their choice of narrative perspective. These are both wildly popular book and they are books I will probably end up recommending to many readers. But the confluence of my POV rabbit hole and my reading of these two novels meant they served more as case studies for my own “POV disorder” than immersive reading experiences. That’s okay! There’s more than one reason to read and, for me, these books offered exactly the insights I needed for my reading revelation.

This week in books.

This week I read…

Dream State by Eric Puchner. Cece is engaged to Charlie—a charming, happy, perfect doctor with a lovable family and a beautiful summer home in Montana. Cece is as much in love with the house as she is with Charlie and, jobless and adrift, she sequesters herself there for the month before their wedding to finalize the celebration details. It’s during that month that Cece begins to spend time with Garrett—Charlie’s best friend who has never quite recovered from the shared traumatic event of their college history. Unlike charming Charlie, Garrett has a darkness to him that touches something in Cece she feels she can’t fully reveal to her fiancé. If you think you can see where this is going, you’re right, but the first part of the book (all 163 pages) is invested in convincing you you actually don’t know where it’s going. Cece is torn, the men get even closer, and a bout of norovirus adds a second layer of potential disaster to the approaching nuptials. We arrive at the wedding day, but before we get any resolution Puchner jumps ahead a decade and the remainder of the novel explores the fallout of this fateful Montana weekend.

Where the book mostly succeeded for me was on the thematic front. The exploration of male friendship was particularly well developed. The concept of the path not taken is always compelling reading and makes for especially good book club fodder—it’s no surprise this ended up as an Oprah pick, and it is indeed a fantastic book to discuss. But there were two main issues that got in the way of my enjoyment. First was the pacing. We spend the first 160 pages on the weeks leading up to Charlie and Cece’s wedding. During this section, we get to know the three main characters fairly well (more on this momentarily) and learn about the baggage each of them brings to their relationships. But the remaining 260 pages spans fifty years. The accelerated pace feels like whiplash and results in the sensation that Puchner is just showing us the most painful moments of the rest of his characters lives. I couldn’t feel emotionally attached to the mature versions of Cece, Charlie, and Garrett, nor to the subsequent generation, because their stories weren’t given any room to breathe.

My second complaint is one I’ve seen other readers raise as well and it is that Cece’s choice—the choice that sets the events of the novel into motion—is left unexplained. To me, this is where the POV issue comes into play. Puchner tells the story in close third person narration that alternates between the main players. This means that we do indeed regularly get Cece’s perspective throughout the book, but her motivation are still never thoroughly examined. Do people make choices that they don’t understand themselves? Of course. But to offer so little reflection when we spend so much time in a character’s perspective makes for a wildly unsatisfying reading experience.

Perhaps the brisk pacing of the novel’s second and third acts and leaving Cece’s motivations largely unexplored were intentional choices on Puchner’s part. They do, in some ways, add to the book club feel of the novel: so many sad scenes to unpack! So many questions to fill in! In spite of my criticisms, I’ve had a great time discussing this book with friends. So add it to your book club’s list of possibilities, but don’t be surprised if it leaves you feeling wanting. Bookshop | Libro.fm

Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy. I’ve been seeing rave reviews about this novel for months, including from my This Month in Books co-host Liz Hein who declared it her favorite read of 2025 way back in December of 2024. I really enjoyed McConaghy’s debut Migrations so this was already on my radar, and as the buzz continued to build I knew this was a book I couldn’t miss this year. The story revolves around the Salt family—the widowed patriarch of which is the caretaker of Shearwater Island, a remote research facility and seed bank near Antarctica. Dominic and his three children have lived on the island for close to a decade, but as the waters rise, the facility must close down and the Salts are weeks out from relocating following in the footsteps of the scientists and researchers. When a woman washes ashore of Shearwater, close to death, her presence bring out buried emotions and secrets in Dominic and each of his children.

McConaghy’s nature writing is breathtaking and the fact that she chose to set this book in such a sublime location was reason enough for me to pick it up. She also crafts intriguing characters. From the long-grieving widower to the distant daughter to the precocious young son, she manages to avoid relying on tropes and types, offering complex characters for the reader to cling to. But this book, which I truly wanted to love, does the thing I hate most in my reading: compels me to keep turning the pages by having the characters withhold information. And here is where point of view comes into play, once again. Obviously, all of fiction is a careful unfolding and unveiling of information and action—that is plot! But when a story is told in alternating first person chapters and these narrators have access to all of the information a reader needs, the withholding can feel inauthentic and even manipulative. This has not been and will not be a problem for most readers. The tension, suspense, and unraveling of secrets is large part of what makes people rave about with this book. But for me, this is a stylistic choice that prevents me from fully investing in a book—even when I find much else to love, as I did here. I hope to write more about this experience in a longer piece, but for now I’ll say, I highly recommend this book on the basis of trusted readers’ love for it—but if you have the same hangups as me, you might find yourself frustrated. Bookshop | Libro.fm

Now I’m reading…

I’m reading both the FM Book Club selection and the Buzzy Book of the Month. They are both dense and very well-written, which is a treat.

New on my TBR…

We’re getting a new

Brandon

Taylor this year! Having read a lot about his process and thinking about craft via his Substack, I’m particularly excited to see how is work evolves in this new novel.

Links I love.

Six authors share their favorite Jane Austen novels. (The Guardian)

The props coordinator for The White Lotus shared how he selects books for the characters. (Lit Hub)

I am obsessed with this review of The Unworthy that connects it back to classics like Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Herland.

An explanation of the Meta tell-all Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t want you to read. (Vox)

I’ve yet to finish Victorian Psycho, but this interview steeled my nerves and I might be ready to pick it back up. (The Guardian)

I loved learning about how the LA library cataloged reviews to help readers find the books they wanted before the internet. (NPR)

Kazuo Ishiguro on art and AI. (The Guardian)

An English professor analyzes a metafictional story written by AI. (Vulture)

I really want to read this history of witches. (NPR)

End Notes.

What I’m watching, listening to, making, and love this week.

• I’ve been on a Critics at Large listening spree. One of my 2025 goals was to read more cultural criticism, and I have been, but listening is a great way to fit in even more. Plus cultural criticism podcasts tend to be conversational criticism, which I often find more enjoyable than criticism in essay form. Last week I shared this episode and this week I’m going to push this newest one about choice overwhelm and this older episode about romantasy on you.

• This is a great listen for after you finish Stag Dance.

• Chapter books with illustrations on every page are the sweet spot of our bedtime reading at the moment. The WellieWishers books have been a huge hit of late.

• Louise has been really into jewelry making lately and I’ve found Djeco kits to be top-notch. They include everything you need, are a decent size for three-year-old hands to largely create independently, and the beads are so pretty that even a chaotic toddler design looks fun and pretty.

• Top Chef is back, baby. So happy to be in Canada with my friends and a new catch of cheftestants.

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Happy reading!

Sara