Literary Devices in Nothing
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Setting
A note at the end of the book tells us, "Taering is a fictional place. Its name is derived from a verb meaning to gradually consume, corrode, or eat through, for example the way rust may eat throug...
Narrator Point of View
This is a bit of a tricky one. Agnes is our narrator, and we hear events recounted through her perception, but she speaks for the group. She lets us see inside her own life a few times; we learn th...
Genre
It's narrated by a teenager, it's about teenagers, and it was written for teenagers. It also won the Printz Medal for Young Adult Literature and was hailed by YA-author-slash-demigod John Green as...
Tone
You can accuse Janne Teller of a lot of things, but being warm and fuzzy isn't one of them. The characters in Nothing are so cold that if you licked one of them, your tongue would get stuck. An exa...
Writing Style
Nothing is the book version of one of those modern, architecture-magazine homes that's all hard white edges and stainless steel. By the end, you're just looking for a couch and an afghan, and maybe...
What's Up With the Title?
Nothing is pretty straightforward as far as titles go: it's the first word of the book, and we learn what it means on the first page. It comes from Pierre Anthon's declaration that nothing matters,...
What's Up With the Ending?
At the end of Nothing, it's been eight years since Pierre Anthon's death in the sawmill fire. Class 7A has scattered to other, larger schools, as Danish kids do in 8th grade. Sofie was sent to a me...
Tough-o-Meter
Nothing is a quick read, and it probably won't send you running for the dictionary. Although some of the Danish words may be unfamiliar, the English translation does an excellent job of explaining...
Plot Analysis
Well, That's One Way to Get NoticedIt's the first day of school in Taering, and Class 7A is gathered in Mr. Eskildsen's class at Taering School for another year of learning. But Pierre Anthon isn't...
Trivia
Existentialism was as much a literary movement as a philosophical one, with Sartre's works Nausea and No Exit using fiction to convey his ideas. Those sound like some lighthearted reads, huh?J...
Steaminess Rating
Full disclosure: there's a rape in Nothing. It's not graphic; you, the reader, aren't actually there when it happens. But you see the before-and-after, and that's plenty gruesome enough. Huge Hans...