Emotional Manipulation

Throughout the memoir, the author has a habit of ending paragraphs with these one-liners that are usually shocking or maybe not even that, they just reveal something extra. Just a few examples: "And now they're both smiling and crying, and I've never seen them look so proud of me," "I didn't realize I was such a monster. I don't know why, but I didn't," "I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish. I wish I'd stopped. But I didn't," and "I'm not going to cover anything up. This is me,"(71, 75, 106, 121).

All of these lines strike me as interesting because they are placed at the end of paragraphs or even chapters as a way to add emphasis. All of them are attention-catching, the reader can't just scroll over them. They all contain strong pathos; they are emotional statements that resound within the reader because of the blunt way in which the author presents them. They come straight from the mind of that eighth grade boy, he's trying to get to to feel sorry for him. The reader notices, but it works.
The story, keeping true to its 14-year-old narrator, is strongly emotional in the way that a 14 year old boy would tell it because he'd want you to have a reaction.

Also, in keeping with the 14-year-old narration, is the way the narrator bounces around between his views on himself, what happened to him, and his family. As Runyov beams that he'd "never seen [his family] look so proud of [him]," he wishes that "they'd all stop saying how proud they are of [him]," just a few pages later (71, 99). This emphasizes the present-tense of the narration because we see his mind even as he changes it. This gives the reader a more intimate connection with the way the character feels than if the author had simply explained they way he changed his mind many times throughout his experience. This intimacy gives the narrator more control over the reader in a way, we feel whatever he wants us to feel because we are so involved in his emotions. The pathos mentioned earlier comes into play here because every emotion that the boy in the story feels is felt by the reader, thus he manipulates us in a way to sympathise with his suffering by making it also intensely felt by the reader.

But don't get me wrong, this emotional manipulation if you will is by no means in-your-face. I find it rather subtle in fact. When I was describing the book to a friend she asked me how I could read it because it sounds so sad. Actually, reading the story doesn't make me feel sad because despite all of the emotions thrown at the reader, self-pity is not one of them. The narrator doesn't feel sorry for himself throughout the memoir so it is not overwhelming for the reader. Even as he describes how he "didn't realize [he] was such a monster," he was strong in his stance that he was "not going to cover anything up," and he would accept himself for how he made himself look (75, 121). Of course there is still emotional manipulation going on here, yet it is not in a way that makes the reader feel sorry for the character but rather admire him or at least respect his acceptance of the consequences of his actions.