Zindel’s “The Pigman” does not follow the single narration style of the YA novels we have previously read and instead chooses to include the voices of two teenagers. Knowing that there is usually a question about the reliability of the narrator in novels, especially as YA novels often follow a retrospective style, it would be expected that having two narrators would serve the purpose of making events more concrete and less subjective because what one narrator withholds the other might share.

However, John and Lorraine question each other, and take turns narrating while clashing on what they think the other must have felt about an event or a person. This is especially the case in the way that Lorraine describes herself as compassionate, suggesting that John is not. This pins his rash behavior on his inconsiderate nature and suggests that he does not care for Mr.Pignati, something he goes out of his way in the end of the book to refute. However, it is important to note that John and Lorraine describe each other in ways that the other is blind to, and an example of this is when John describes Lorraine as beautiful.

The voices of the two narrators is not distinct. In fact, what stands out most is Mr.Pignati and this is highlighted in the novel’s title. The reader is made to stand back and reevaluate who it is that’s speaking, which made the reading feel a little halted at times. Finally, I found the choice to end with John to be particularly interesting, as the final chapter did not read like his previous ones, and ends on a rather philosophical note of trespassing and what it means to mature as opposed to regressing back to childhood. If he had been able to write the last two chapters, instead of giving one up to Lorraine, then perhaps this change in voice would not have been as startling. This leaves us with the question of how Lorraine would have ended this narration, and if there would have been a shift in her voice to match the change in her eyes that John describes earlier on in the novel.