 Sweet Tooth is a love story , a spy novel , and a book about literature itself . Serena and her boyfriend Haley – she a well @-@ read but uncritical lover of literature , he a highly accomplished writer and literary scholar – have different attitudes towards literature . Serena prefers a realist approach , where life in the book reflects real life . Haley on the other hand is of a more modernist school , and enjoys experimentation in his work . McEwan plays with these differences , firstly by placing himself in the novel and blurring the line between author and character , and secondly by writing what appears to be a straight first @-@ person narrative , only to distort this perception at the very end . 
