“Stop it!” I’d scream at her, releasing all of my rage on the most convenient and undeserving target. “Stop looking at me!” Whereas I had once commanded her attention, it now annoyed me when she monitored my gait; it threatened my elaborate and carefully constructed plan of passing as normal. But even as I resented her preoccupation with my leg, I also relied on it. As long as Mom was thinking about it, I could do my best to erase the fact of the leg from my mind. So she was the one who had noticed the chewed-up-looking foot.
Emily Rapp writes her memoir in first person so everyone who reads it can feel her emotions as if they are their own. This is the closest way her readers will get to experiencing her life’s trials and tribulations, and it is often what keeps us reading. It is much more interesting to understand the emotions behind an experience rather than just being told about the account. In the paragraph above, you can really feel her anger. She presents the anger in a way that most mothers and daughters would be able to easily relate to, even though the exact situation is one that the vast majority of people will never experience.