Tatum is a somewhat frustrating main character. Her life is directionless not so much because she doesn’t know what she wants from it, but because she is unwilling to pursue her desires beyond taking what falls directly in front of her. She stagnates while fantasizing about what life should be— a charmed existence as an intellectual immersed in the world of fine art, romanced in relationships that flounder in reality.
It makes the way Mateo betrays her seem almost inevitable, the humiliation all the worse for its basis in truth. Though it’s not, of course, truly inevitable or justified; the cruelty was something Mateo chose again and again. And Tatum’s flaws, her malaise and timidity, her uncertain and malleable concept of herself, are hardly damnable. I ended up liking how the traits manifested. She was believable as a young adult who’d often felt out of place or minimized and didn’t know how to advocate for herself in any aspect of her life — her relationship with Mateo, but also in her career, her friendships, her education. The framing of the story as a reflection on this time of her life from a point where she’s settled into herself more helped by adding more self-awareness to the narrative.
It makes the way Mateo betrays her seem almost inevitable, the humiliation all the worse for its basis in truth. Though it’s not, of course, truly inevitable or justified; the cruelty was something Mateo chose again and again. And Tatum’s flaws, her malaise and timidity, her uncertain and malleable concept of herself, are hardly damnable. I ended up liking how the traits manifested. She was believable as a young adult who’d often felt out of place or minimized and didn’t know how to advocate for herself in any aspect of her life — her relationship with Mateo, but also in her career, her friendships, her education. The framing of the story as a reflection on this time of her life from a point where she’s settled into herself more helped by adding more self-awareness to the narrative.