Handle With Care

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes depictions of medical procedures and trauma, self-harm, sexual assault, suicide, disordered eating, outdated and offensive mental health beliefs and terminology, police brutality, and the death of a child.

Each chapter of the novel is told from a different point of view; however, each character always directly addresses a “you,” which is Willow. A direct address is when a character uses another person’s name or pronoun to address a remark or question to them. In this way, the characters explain their actions to Willow as though justifying them. Additionally, the use of a direct address, especially one that uses the second-person singular pronoun “you,” creates a sense of community and complicity for the audience as well. For a story as emotionally fraught as Handle with Care, this narrative technique serves as a way to engage and hook the audience.

By jumping between various time periods and characters’ perspectives, foreshadowing becomes a central literary element in the novel. Foreshadowing is when information is shared that hints at something else that will be important further along in the story. The motif of