i honestly can’t believe what i just read! 

this novel is such an interesting exploration of how someone might turn to extremist thinking. the way abandonment pierces deeply into the soul, causes us to seek connection to the one who abandoned us no matter what that asks of us. of how we want to fit so badly that we will abandon our own selves, our own identity. turn against our very family members, for the sake of acceptance from others. the pain of those left behind, of trying to make sense of what it means to face the choices of those they love 

in a way, i think it’s so much easier for us to demonize extremists as individuals or maybe even as a group, without extending that same demonization to the circumstances that create it in the first place. we have marked some extremism as okay (u.s. government i’m looking at you 👀), and because of that, we turn our cheeks to the harm they cause. but then someone brown and Muslim displays extremist ideology and suddenly… the government gets to scrub their hands clean and say “look at these bad people shame shame” meanwhile the blood seeps through anyway