“She needed time, as much as they could give her. Time to make sure that she’d done everything she could to make things right with her sister. Time to make Kim believe that she was a good mother. Time to convince Melissa that doing the right thing belatedly was better than never having done it at all. And Lila…well, eternity might not be long enough to solve Lila’s problems. But couldn’t God at least give Jo long enough to make a start?

[...] She felt her wife slip her small hand into Jo’s and squeeze. Jo blinked back tears and thought, Please, God, or whoever’s up there, please just give me enough time to make it right.”

The constraints of time begin the novel and provide a framing device and a clear ticking-clock plotline that adds tension to the story. Jo needs more time before breast cancer takes her life, so readers feel the tension of knowing that whatever they learn of Jo, wherever the novel takes her, they will return to this point when her life is ending. By framing the novel this way, Weiner engages readers and encourages their connection to and investment in Jo’s story.

“Jo wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist, feeling the stiffness underneath the starch of Sarah’s best red dress, the one with a full skirt flaring out from her narrow waist and three big white buttons on either side of the bodice. A smart red hat with a black ribbon band sat on top of Sarah’s curls. Her mother put her arm around Jo’s shoulders and squeezed, and Jo felt like someone had pulled a blanket up to her chin, or like she was swimming in Lake Erie, where they went in the summertime, and had just paddled into a patch of warm water.”

The symbols of fashion and appearance emerge in the starting chapter through Sarah’s descriptions, which focus on her attire. Characterization and feelings are also well-described with the metaphor of Jo experiencing warmth when her no-nonsense mother shows rare affection.

“Jo had gotten in a fight because a boy had told her that the Jews killed Jesus. Bethie figured her mother would be mad at Jo for fighting, but instead her mouth had gotten tight, and she’d said, ‘The Romans killed Jesus, not the Jews. Tell your little friend that.’ Then she’d told Bethie and Jo about how kids had teased her when she was little. Jo had pestered her for details [...] but Sarah would only shake her head and say, ‘It was a long time ago.’”

Jo’s bold, physically tough character develops with this story about her fighting discrimination. Though she rarely connects with Jo, Sarah firmly believes in fighting anti-Semitism, connecting the ideas of social justice to religious persecution—along with intolerance against gay people and Black people.