While the vast majority of novels are written in the past tense, Hoover manages to carry off a lengthy narrative in the present tense. One virtue of present tense is that all actions and emotions described possess an air of immediacy. Readers may note that often when individuals describe an emergency or crisis in real life, they relate the details in the present tense, a sign of the emotional potency of the event. Thus, the narrative, as told in the first person by Beyah, has a heightened tension throughout. A present-tense narrative also lends itself to an ongoing stream of events, chapters, and segments that follow sequentially, as if the narrator is chronologically relating all the necessary elements of an involved story, working toward a resolution. The downside of writing in the present tense is that it creates difficulty in moving from one point in time to another. This creates something of a disconnect, as when the author must explain that Beyah has gone away to college in one chapter and then explain in the next that four years have passed and she is now a graduate.