Content Warning: This section of the guide includes references to suicide, physical abuse, the loss of a child, torture, and murder.

“She just gives Ryan a half smile and pulls into a secluded opening in the trees that the kids call Lover’s Lane in some ironic tribute to teenage make-out spots in old horror movies.”

The novel’s opening plays with the trope of teenage lovers being assaulted in an isolated location in a kind of metanarrative. This kind of clichéd assault does, in fact, take place—moreover, it happens in the middle of a violent thunderstorm, which is another thriller cliché. By overtly referencing these tropes from thriller books and movies, Alex Finlay clarifies that his decision to revel in these kinds of clichés is intentional. In fact, clichés like this are prevalent and popular largely because they enhance suspense, and by knowingly employing them, Finlay later subverts them—for instance, the novel reveals that the initial assailant is also a victim of circumstances.

“It’s been five years and she is the first person—the first woman—to make Ryan smile.”

This description of Nora interacting with Ryan serves as a compact but forceful characterization of each of them—Ryan is an emotionally scarred man and she is a woman who is special enough to reach past his wounds. Finlay also uses this line to set the timeframe for Ryan’s narrative in relation to Alison’s disappearance. In hindsight, this becomes critically important as a contrast to the lack of chronological indicators in the Philadelphia narrative strand.