This isn't even a review, I don't know what it is...but I finished reading The Only Road last night, and I don't know if a book has ever made me so emotional. It took me a while to finish because I had to take so many breaks to process those emotions, and I think more people should read books like this. It's a prime example of what freedom to read folks talk about when they praise the way reading exposes people to other viewpoints and helps (kids especially) learn and develop empathy. It puts you in the shoes of someone you may not otherwise understand in a way that just...frankly tore my heart out.
That said, I was thinking about some people in my life that I wish would read a book like this, and I realized that truthfully, even if they did I don't think it would make them feel any type of way. I don't think it would make them take a look at their attitudes about immigration, particularly people who come into the United States "illegally" (no one is illegal on stolen land, abolish ICE, our legal immigration system is a joke and seeking asylum is a fucking human right), and I think many of them are so dug in to their hateful rhetoric that they would manage to find a way to blame people in positions like the characters in The Only Road for the situation they were in.
And that just makes me sad and confused. I genuinely don't understand how people can hold such hatred in their hearts and be so closeminded and cruel and then just...walk around like normal. How do you exist like that? How do you justify it? It baffles me.
I don't know. This isn't a book review, and it's mostly me having a rambly existential crisis, I guess. It's just weighing on my mind, and I figured why not put it out there. I wish more people were willing to commit the sin of empathy.
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