It Starts with Us

Hoover uses the epistolary form throughout the novel to allow the reader to access the intimate thoughts of the main characters while maintaining narrative progress. Lily’s journals are also an epistolary tool, as they give Atlas and the reader a glimpse into Lily’s past that would otherwise be achieved through exposition and flashbacks. Having too many flashbacks in a novel can interfere with a plot’s forward movement, especially when it has a message of letting go of the past and moving toward the future.

The personal nature of letters makes them the perfect vehicle to express one’s innermost thoughts. One example is Atlas communicating in letters to Lily and unveiling his most intimate thoughts and feelings about their relationship. The epistolary form also offers the characters the opportunity to say things they are unable to say to each other. For instance, Lily’s journal entries offer Atlas a glimpse into Lily’s true feelings during their teenage romance, which she could not express to him at the time. This insight renews Lily and Atlas’s devotion to one another and gives them a second opportunity for love. Without those journals, Atlas may have never understood how Lily felt back then, and Lily would not have been able to convey her previous feelings accurately.