How It All Goes Down
- Our narrator, Lena, tells us, "the smell of oranges has always reminded me of funerals" (2.1). We doubt Tropicana will be using that for a slogan any time soon.
- That funeral in question is that of our narrator's mother, who has committed suicide. Lena now lives with her Aunt Carol and her cousins, Jenny and Grace.
- But this is all a flashback. In the present day, Lena is getting ready for her evaluation—a procedure that will rank her and match her with a boy to be married to after she is cured (from that love sickness). Lena hopes to be "a seven or an eight" (2.20). Ugh. This isn't the most feminist book ever.