Sam Szpor

3.5 - love the world and the idea but I felt like this should have been half as long. Most of this was a war simulation and I just didn't love that. I'll read one more before I throw in the towel.

1.5 - Agonizing is the best word to describe this. Predicable and almost entirely uninteresting.

I genuinely think that CE is a intelligent and thoughtful human. I look up to the way that she communicates her thoughts and ideas and you can glean a LOT from this.

My issue is on the premise of this book: that sometimes people won't understand you and that's okay - be who you are. It's not that I inherently disagree but rather the lack of boundaries or nuance she has. With this thesis you have to Assume there is no inherent truth. She seem to see people who disagree with a life choice as people who merely hate rather than people who see the most fruitful way of life within the bounds of a different belief.

She takes the idea of her playing Jesus Christ and people have issue with that as those who are bigoted and hate themselves. She sees Jesus as merely a man, rather than God himself in which there must be reverence. Of course, I believe there is flaw in her just viewing Jesus as a man, yet the concern that I think Christians and non Christians should see is that in CE's view there is no assumption to even see where her critics are coming from.

To have stable society there must be truths and virtues in which we agree. This is where political difference comes in.

And this is the issue with the left in general: that there are no parameters and you can say what you feel and do what you feel, everything is a spectrum and constantly changing. This is a slippery slope that really holds no
Moral high ground.

With that said, there were MANY great insights here, that this is worth picking up!

I might have to go back and try again. A great general concept but this was a SLOG

Because of the fragmented nature of this book, I appreciate it for what it is but the movie did so much with that space that its hard not to favor that over this. A really beautiful story.