Who is the narrator, can she or he read minds, and, more importantly, can we trust her or him?
First Person (Central) / Min Green
Why We Broke Up shows us the world through the eyes of narrator Min Green, a teenager who's dealing with the fallout from her relationship with one Ed Slaterton. Actually, it shows us the world through her words: The text itself is an epistolary novel—a letter that Min's writing to Ed to explain (as well as better understand for herself) what the heck happened between them.
To do so, Min walks Ed through the stories behind a box of souvenirs from their time together. One by one, she excavates movie tickets, love notes, and other memorabilia, writing about what they once meant to her, and what they mean to her now. When she's finished, she plans to dump the whole shebang (a.k.a. the letter and the mementos) at Ed's door as a form of closure.
In novels, first-person narrators often create a sense of intimacy, and in this case the "Dear Ed" (1.1) device makes Min's thoughts and feelings seem all the more vibrant and real. Min's perspective is further fleshed out by Maira Kalman's illustrations, which depict each item in the breakup box. As these objects appear one at a time—in a bright color palette, which is pretty and feverish—helps us see how each everyday object was transformed into an artifact that's important, and even magical, to Min.