Well, right off the bat, it should be acknowledged that this is a confusing and difficult novel. Perhaps one of the most difficult moments to sympathize with comes when the narrator rejects her parents for supporting their son. Typically, it would be regarded as a good thing if a formerly closed-minded parent manages to celebrate the life of their gay child who died of AIDS (during this time, the opposite was likely, but these parents even become advocates for gay rights!). However, the narrator feels left out.
This is a pretty good time for a feminist interpretation, because the narrator's point of view seems to endure much suffering for just being a woman. In fact, the narrator doesn't hate her gay brother, she is just jealous that their parents go so far to accept him and love him, even accepting his homosexuality, while they mistreat her for being a girl. The hypocrisy is being shown, albeit in a difficult way that might make the reader cringe. Much of this novel seems designed to invoke cringing, to be frank.
For the narrator, the difficulty she experiences trying to win the approval of her parents leaves her likely to endure painful relationships. She is constantly abused by sexual partners, and she finds herself in compromising situations. This isn't just emotional, either. She is physically abused and threatened with death. She is subjected to a life beset on all sides by serious drug usage, and all because her sense of self was not properly established. This is obvious from the narrator's constant name changes.
