I remember reading this book last year. It was the height of the pandemic. My mon lost her job and I attended my first rally. At that time, I was filled up with so much anger and jealousy. Anger for people who I thought were friends of mine turned out to change sides so quickly and laugh at the struggles of others. Jealousy for the people who treated the pandemic like a vacation, the people who belted out words so easily with no thought of how much impact it could do to those who were hurting. I remember reading the synopsis of this book and being completely entranced, I downloaded it the next day and finished it in a couple of hours. For someone who hasn’t read for two years, the book was such a refresher. It talks a lot about how speaking up can help so much. It covers freedom of speech, the difference between societal classes, the treatment of the LGBTQ+ community in the Philippines, being apolotical and sextrafficking. It also talks about how in this world today, we need more storytellers and people who are empathetic. Now, it does have some flaws specifically it is in the perspective of an American born Filipino and it is shown through that gaze which can be a bit out of touch for those of us who’ve lived in the Philippines their whole life. I also do feel like a lot of the character were almost stereotypical but I mean it did make sense to the story. At the time, I remember telling the bookclub that I was in, “This book taught me how political views don’t define you or it’s not you as a whole.” But now that I have a little more perspective and I haven’t read this book in almost a year. My takeaway has change. I believe that your political views are a part of you. It’s a choice you make and the candidate that you choose, campaign and claim that they will lead the country into a brighter future does say a lot about you. In this world, we can never agree on everything. But if we actually look at each other a bit closer, you’ll see that there are more things that bind us than break us.