"Writing is... opening doors to other lands" (Metaphor)
When describing how much she loves writing and what writing means to her, June compares it to "opening doors" to new places. Writing allows her to discover new ideas and escape the real world—a practice that, for June, meant she could write her way out of a family that didn't understand her, a home where she always felt abandoned and alone.
"They treated her like a museum object" (Simile)
When Candice describes to June the challenges Athena faced in the publishing world, she explains that Athena was constantly forced into writing stories that focused on "racial trauma," since that's what the publishers had identified would sell well. The publishers—"they"—treated her like a "museum object" because of the historical trauma she represented by way of her ethnicity and cultural background. And, much like an object, she was forced to conform to this static image, unable to write anything that broke from this image that the industry wanted her to fit into.
"like Lady Macbeth" (Simile)
When processing the memory of Athena's death, June is haunted by all the possible actions she could've taken to try and save Athena, even though in the moment, she attempted to perform the Heimlich maneuver and did all that she could. Her own process of recalling, and repeating the memory to herself, reminds her of Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare's play Macbeth, who repeatedly fixates on a "spot" of imaginary blood she believes she sees after she and her husband commit a series of murders. The simile illuminates how guilty and complicit June feels in Athena's death.
"the floodgates opened" (Metaphor)
June compares a series of hateful messages that Athena received on Twitter to "floodgates" opening, conjuring an image of totally unstoppable, powerful waves that flood the individual with hateful speech and vitriol. This metaphor effectively captures the force and momentum of online feedback that authors are subject to.
The "white gaze" (Metaphor)
The "white gaze" is a metaphor that refers to the ways in which a white person perceives the world through the "lens" of their privilege—their "gaze" becomes "white" because their experience in the world has been shaped by the privilege they have as white people.
