The tomb
The narrator compares the library at night to a tomb. The narrator writes, “During the day its panels glowed amber, a burnished golden hive, less a library than a temple. At night, it just looked like a tomb.”According to the author, Yale University’s library is cold and calm at night, making it look like a crypt.
Simile of sci-fi-movies
The campus architecture is compared to sci-fi-movie. The narrator says, “He’d explained that the reasons for the way Beinecke been built, the way it was supposed to mirror and slot into this corner of the campus architecture, but it still felt like a sci-fi-movies to her, like the students should all be wearing unitards or too-short tunics, drinking something called the Extract, eating food in pellets.”
Shotgun blast
Alex’s boyfriend's startling is compared to a shotgun blast. The narrator writes, “At half-past ten, she’d woken with a start, drool trickling across her cheek. He startled ‘Shit!’ had gone off like a shotgun blast in quite of the library, and she’d buried her face in her scarf as she slung her bag over her shoulder and made her escape.”
Stripper
Alex is compared to a stripper when the author writes, “Now, she cut through Commons, beneath the rotunda where the names of the war dead were carved deep into the marble, and stone figures good vigil-Peace Devotion, Memory, and finally Courage, who wore a helmet and shield and little else and had always looked to Alex more like a stripper than a mourner.”
