Swiv is bold and brash, though often filled with anxiety regarding the adults in her life: Mom is emotionally unstable and heavily pregnant, and Grandma needs medication and care as she ages. Swiv feels responsible for both of them, especially Grandma. She is also concerned about the fate of her unborn sibling, Gord. Swiv silently transmits advice to Gord to stay strong and count on Swiv to be present, one of many ways that she takes on adult roles despite only being nine years old.

The novel is written in Swiv’s voice, precocious and irreverent. She imitates the speech of the adults in her life, though she does not always understand their terms and phrases. While she often models herself on the women in her life—she smokes Mom’s cigarettes when Mom takes a nap—she also rejects certain behaviors. For example, she is very uncomfortable with anything related to sex or sexual expression: “[Grandma] started listing positions that were comfortable to have sex in. Stop! I said. Ho! said Grandma. Why not talk about this? I said, Because it’s not funny” (53). Swiv represents a liminal figure, caught between the preoccupations and embarrassments of a child and the responsibilities of an adult, as well as between genders: She is frequently mistaken for a boy.