Pretty Things

Content Warning: This section of the guide quotes stigmatizing language about mental health.

“They lift their phones toward the sky and vamp and click, because if this is a church then social media is their scripture; and that tiny screen is how they deify themselves.”

Janelle Brown uses a metaphor to compare the luxurious nightclub to a church and social media to a religious text. She establishes the omnipresence of social media and its power to create misleading truths and stories.

“So I’m a grifter. You might say that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree—I come from a long line of bagmen and petty thieves, opportunists and outright criminals—but the truth is that I was not raised for this.”

Nina uses a blunt tone to tell the reader what they already know: She’s a grifter. Brown uses a cliché—“the apple doesn’t fall from the tree”—to suggest that Nina is attempting to detach herself emotionally from her and her family’s crimes. The quote links to the motif of inheritance and undercuts it: Nina was not brought up to grift.

“I walked away with a six-figure student-loan debt and a piece of paper that qualified me to do absolutely nothing of value whatsoever. I figured that just being smart and working hard would clear my path toward a different life. So is it any surprise that I ended up a grifter, after all.”

Nina uses hyperbole to demonstrate how her college degree has hurt her economic prospects, and hence Brown connects the American college system to grifting. It also works as a red herring because, in the end, Nina’s degree in art history has value: It leads Vanessa to hire her and make her a part of her family.