The Fault in Our Stars

“But it’s not a cancer book, because cancer books suck. Like, in cancer books, the cancer person  starts a charity that raises money to fight cancer, right? And this commitment to charity reminds the cancer person of the essential goodness of humanity and makes him/her feel loved and encouraged because s/he will leave a cancer-curing legacy. But in [An Imperial Affliction], Anna decides that being a person with cancer who starts a cancer charity is a bit narcissistic, so she starts a charity called The Anna Foundation for People with Cancer Who Want to Cure Cholera.”

-John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

* * *

The above quote occurs early in the fourth chapter of the young adult novel The Fault in Our Stars and is a good indication of how the rest of the book will go. The narrator is Hazel, a teenaged girl who has had cancer for three years. She carries an oxygen tank everywhere she goes, she attends a Support Group that seems highly unhelpful, she loves her parents, she reads poetry from Eliot and Ginsberg, and she meets (early in the novel, at the previously mentioned unhelpful Support Group) a cancer survivor named Augustus Waters, with whom she eventually falls in love.

This, too, is not your typical cancer book. Throw every comparison to A Walk to Remember or Lurlene McDaniel out of the window. Instead, think of the Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. In fact, John Green sends Hazel and Augustus to Amsterdam, where they have an incredible moment in the Anne Frank Museum, and I was reminded of why I loved and lamented Frank’s diary so much: I knew how the book was going to end. I got to know the characters, but I, the reader, understood that I could not be with the characters for long, even within the pages of the novel.

The beautiful thing about this book is that you know tragedy will occur. Hazel is very grounded, very accepting of the fact that she has a terminal cancer. She knows there is no cure; she knows the drugs she’s taking are only prolonging her life, not ending the cancer. She can, however, still lament the brevity of life. She can seeks to understand life in the short time she has.

Cancer is not portrayed as romantic, as in other novels. It is heartbreaking and devastating in so many ways. Hazel and Gus, and I and everyone else who’s read this, understand that.

* * *

In spite of the sadness, this book is funny and alive. The dialogue is fabulous–Hazel and Gus are quirky and intelligent, and their conversations often reminded me of conversations I’ve had with my best friend.

Green is also great at metafiction–reminding the reader that this is a novel, not reality. In the book, Hazel’s favorite novel is An Imperial Affliction, which Gus also reads. This novel drives a lot of the plot of the story as Gus chooses to use a “Wish” from a nonprofit organization to take Hazel to Amsterdam to meet the author of the novel. Hazel, in all her rereadings of the book, has hoped to discern what happens to the character after the book’s abrupt end. When she finally meets the author–who is a total jerk (to be nice)–he explains:

“But to be perfectly frank, this childish idea that the author of a novel has some special insight into the characters in the novel…it’s ridiculous. That novel was composed of scratches on a page, dear. The characters inhabiting it have no life outside of those scratches. What happened to them? They all ceased to exist the moment the novel ended.”

This tirade, combined with Green’s author’s note that the novel is a work of fiction, serve as a reminder of the power of a story: we can care so much about characters, be driven to powerful emotion, travel around the world just to discover more of the story.

This reminder made it easier on me to finish the book. I don’t remember the last time I cried so much while reading a book. And while I lamented losing characters who had become dear to me, I also remembered that their stories actually did end when I turned the last page, and I remembered that my life continues beyond the close of the book. And while I continue to live, I remember what I’ve learned from stories: that life and love matter, even when they’re oh-so-difficult.

I Am Number Four

It’s been awhile since I’ve reviewed a book–not because I haven’t read some review-worthy books, but because I haven’t had time or haven’t been able to figure out how to accurately summarize my thoughts.

However, I’ve got one for you now. I Am Number Four has received a lot of attention in the young adult realm lately–mostly because it’s just been made into a film. And, like the good reader that I am, I promised myself that I would read the book before seeing the movie (even though Civil Twilight’s song “Letters from the Sky” is on the soundtrack!).

All right, the premise: it’s science fiction (yay!). The title refers to the novel’s protagonist. He is an alien from a planet called Lorian. He and eight other children, along with each of their Cepans (like Watchers…sort of) and the pilot of the spacecraft, managed to escape Lorian during a global war in which the Lorians’ enemy, the Mogadorians, killed the Lorians to take over their planet. The Mogadorians had used up all the resources and their own planet and needed a new home.

The novel follows the fourth child and his Cepan, Henri. Every few months, Four and Henri move to a new small town in an effort to keep Four’s identity secret. Four changes his name each time (he goes by John Smith during the events of this novel). The numbering of each child is important. The Mogadorians have come to Earth to track down the nine children. Once they kill the nine, they can then begin to take over Earth (a planet much larger and more suited to the Mogadorians’ needs). But there’s a curse on the children for their protection: the Mogadorians can only kill the children in order of their number. (I don’t recall whether the number represents birth order or something else. That wasn’t clearly explained.) Every time one of the kids dies, each of the remaining nine gets a ring burned around his or her ankle as an alert that one of their number is gone. The novel opens with Three’s death, which is why Henri and Four must move yet again.

They arrive in Paradise, Ohio, where John soon meets a beautiful girl named Sarah and befriends a sci-fi geek named Sam. From there on out, it’s just what you’d expect from an alien-pretending-to-be-human, coming-of-age tale. John’s in love for the first time, has a best friend for the first time, experiences the arrival of his Legacies (his special abilities as one of the nine–he’s fireproof and able to employ telekinesis), and struggles to decide how to tell both Sam and Sarah about his true identity. And, of course, the Mogadorians find him. Fighting ensues. People discover his secret. Enemies in his high school become allies in the fight against the Mogadorians.

I expected this book to be epic. My favorite parts of this book, as I also expected, were the backstory: how Four and Henri arrived on Earth; why they left to begin with; folklore, history, and tradition associated with Lorian. In general, what I love most about science and/or speculative fiction is the ability of an author to create another world. And Pittacus Lore (a pseudonym that I’ll discuss more in a moment) sets up an interesting world.

But the execution of this story was merely good. I expected something phenomenal, and I didn’t quite get that. At times, the dialogue seemed a bit off, a bit too adult-trying-to-be-teenager. At other times, minor details in the story weren’t explained enough, and in science fiction, the beauty is in the details. For example, when the Mogadorians arrive, Four flees his school and goes back to his house. His girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend Mark (and, therefore, Four’s high school enemy) is sitting at his kitchen table on Four’s Cepan’s computer. It’s never explained why he’s there or how much he knows, but suddenly, Mark is fighting alongside Four and his friends. I was seriously bothered by the inconsistency in Mark’s attitude.

Nonetheless, the story kept me (mostly) interested. I read the book in a few days, and I’m looking forward to the movie. It may be one of those books that works better visually than textually. And I’ll definitely read any sequels that come out. But I’m not dying to know what happens next, as I did with the Hunger Games trilogy or the Chaos Walking trilogy.

One last thing about this book: Pittacus Lore is a pseudonym (obviously). The name will somehow come into play with the history of Lorian–there are references in this first book. I assumed, at first, that Lore was a new author on the scene and just established a pseudonym to go along with the content of the book. However, I searched him on Google after I noticed the first textual reference to a character named Pittacus, and I discovered that Pittacus Lore is actually a collaboration of James Frey and Jobie Hughes. (In fact, in the book, Henri creates new documents for Four to use in the future. Two of those names are “James Hughes” and “Jobie Frey.” Clever.) James Frey is the author of A Million Little Pieces, the “memoir” that Oprah chose for her book club several years ago that was later revealed to be a total fabrication. Frey had written a novel and published it as a memoir, sparking loads of controversy in the publishing world. It turns out that not only is Frey still publishing under his own name, but he’s also working on tons of projects using a variety of pseudonyms. Pittacus Lore is just one of those. This discovery about the real author may have had something to do with my disappointment with the book. I despise a lack of integrity, and no matter how great the writing or the story is, I already had a bad opinion of Frey.

All this to say, I would recommend this book. Just know that it has a few issues, and I wouldn’t rank it among the absolute best young adult novels I’ve read.

Here’s the trailer for the film. I’ve already spotted some differences between the book and the film, but I’m looking forward to seeing it nonetheless:

Life As We Knew It

This is the first book in a trilogy called the Moon Crash Trilogy by Susan Beth Pfeffer. I had heard nothing of it until I picked up the third book in B&N one day, intrigued by the cover (all 3 books have a large moon prominently featured). After I discovered that it was a trilogy, I was excited to find that B&N had the first book for $1.99 in a large online sale a few weeks ago.

The story begins in Spring–school is ending for Miranda and her classmates, and their teachers keep assigning homework related to astronomy because the news has been reporting that an asteroid is on collision course with the moon. No one is worried about the crash, just intrigued, until the night of the collision. The asteroid is denser than astronomers realize, knocking the moon closer to Earth and resetting the gravitational field. Of course, tsunamis wipe out the coastlines of America, earthquakes rumble all over the world, and long-dormant volcanoes begin erupting.

The story is told by 16-year-old Miranda through her diary as she, her mother, and her brothers struggle to survive the aftermath. Pfeffer does a great job of lending a sense of isolation to the setting–isolation that frustrates them, but eventually saves their lives. Miranda is also a good protagonist, I think–sometimes, she’s a selfish teenager, but other times, she’s a fighter, just as she needs to be.

I only had a few issues with the books, and those were mostly with writing style. First, I don’t think Pfeffer wrote urgently enough for the initial crash. It was a very quick scene–block party atmosphere with neighbors watching the sky, crash, oh-know-the-moon-is-closer, panic, sing national anthem, go inside to listen to the news. Maybe I was reading too fast, but the catastrophic event needed a few more pages of description.

Other times, specific details would have been nice. For example, Miranda burns pages of her textbook at one point, and she goes through the thought process of whether she should burn them or not before deciding to. But she never writes down which textbooks she chose. All the thought process involved, and she should have at least said something like. “I hate science. That will be the first to burn.” There’s beauty in the details.

All in all, though, I found this to be quite enjoyable. I started reading yesterday afternoon and finished this morning, so it’s a quick read, as well as being engrossing. The second book, The Dead and the Gone, is actually a companion novel, with characters in New York City who experience the aftereffects of the moon crash. Then, the final book, which was released in April brings those characters to Pennsylvania to meet Miranda. I’m very much looking forward to the final two books (and I’ll probably leave soon to go buy the second one!).

May Books

I’m over halfway toward my goal of reading 100 books that I’d never read before this year. Yay!

42. The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Carrie Ryan. Described as a “post-apocalyptic romance” by Scott Westerfeld, I was sure this would be one I adored. Nope. Not at all.

43. Perfect You, Elizabeth Scott.

44. The Unwritten: Tommy Taylor and the Bogus Identity, Mike Carey & Peter Gross. The first five issues of a comic book series. It’s so good and literary and engrossing.

45. The Unwritten Rule, Elizabeth Scott.

46. Coraline, Neil Gaiman. This graphic novel was adapted from Gaiman’s book and illustrated by P. Craig Russell. I was creeped out by it…which was just about perfect. I want to see the film now.

47. Stealing Heaven, Elizabeth Scott. A young adult novel that went slightly against the formula. This one is about a 17-year-old whose mother steals silver from wealthy homes. They move around constantly, living a nomadic, clandestine life, until they arrive in a town called Heaven. While Dani’s mother is planning what house to strike, Dani makes friends in the town for the first time in her life. It’s a good coming-of-age story about how a girl decides her own future.

48. Superman: Red Son, Mark Millar. A graphic novel answering the question, “What if Superman had landed 12 hours later in Russia instead of Metropolis?” It’s really awesome.

49. Bloom, Elizabeth Scott

50. The Scent of Rain and Lightning, Nancy Pickard.

51. Double Fudge, Judy Blume. Published in 2002, this book was written years after the first four books featuring the Hatcher family and their neighbor Sheila Tubman–Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great, Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Superfudge, and Fudge-a-mania. It is just as delightful and funny as the previous tales.

52. Love You Hate You Miss You, Elizabeth Scott.

Grad school has begun, so I’m working on reading for that class, which means my other reading has slacked off a bit. Still, I’ll manage to get in a few first-time reads in June, I’m sure.

Monsters of Men preview

Two of the best young adult novels I’ve ever read (and two of my favorites from last year’s reads) are Patrick Ness’ epic dystopian novels The Knife of Never Letting Go and its sequel The Ask and the Answer. These two books are the first two in the Chaos Walking trilogy, and the last book Monsters of Men was released in the UK this week. Mr. Ness posted the trailer for the book on his blog, and it’s really awesome:

The only problem is the book won’t be released in the US until September. I have to wait five more months to get my hands on an authentic US copy. I’m seriously considering eBay–I might be able to order a copy from the UK, for far more money than I would pay if I waited until September. It might be worth it, though…especially since I’ve seen this trailer.

#98: Meet Lois Lowry

Jamboread 2010 was held last Saturday at the Spartanburg County Public Library. While there were a variety of events held for kids, Becky, Ticcoa, Harvin, and I were really interested in the two major events: book signings and author/illustrator lectures. Who were the authors and illustrators, you might ask?

Jane Yolen (who has written 300 books, including fairy tales, and she’s also done work in fairy tale research. I used her as a source for my honors project three years ago.)

Paul O. Zelinsky (a wonderful illustrator of tons of children’s books–including Beverly Cleary’s Dear Mr. Henshaw!– and winner of a Caldecott Medal)

LOIS LOWRY! (author of The Giver and Gossamer and tons of other beautiful children’s books)

The day involved lots of laughs as my friends and I excitedly waited to meet these authors and hear them speak. We had books signed by all three, and each gave an hour-long lecture that was truly astonishing. I had a really hard time deciding which lecture I enjoyed the most, so I’ll just say that they were all equally wonderful.

Yolen talked about the importance of storytelling and her unquenchable desire to tell these stories. She also read aloud from her picture book Owl Moon, which is marvelous.

Zelinsky talked about his experiences illustrating. He had a large pad on stage and drew example illustrations for us. He’s so incredibly talented! Here, Awful Ogre is staring down Rapunzel.

And Lowry talked about her childhood and experiences that made her become a writer and write the stories she does. Her mannerisms and style of storytelling made me wish Dr. Sepko could have been there with us…the two of them would be great friends!

Such a perfect day.

“In a way you’ll live forever.”

“But I know who the real hero is, and it isn’t me or even the brave Lanaya. It’s an old man with a white beard and a walking stick and a heart so big it won’t let him stop thinking he can change the world by writing things down in a book that no one will ever read.”

-Rodman Philbrick, The Last Book in the Universe

* * *

In this dystopian novel, books no longer exist. No one reads. No one remembers what life was like before the Big Shake that destroyed civilization. One old man named Ryter is writing the last book in the universe, recording memories from his ancestors and a record of life as it exists now.

Spaz, the protagonist, lives in what’s called a “latch,” a sort of chaotic community run by a latchboss. He needs help getting back to the latch where he once lived, where his adopted sister Bean is dying of leukemia because the cure has been lost. Ryter insists that he go with Spaz, to record this last adventure before he dies.

Other characters in this story are “proovs,” genetically improved people. They’ve been programmed to resist diseases and cancer, so they have no need of chemotherapy that can cure Bean’s disease. Spaz meets a proov named Lanaya, and the three of them fight off gangs of evil people to get to Bean. All the while, Ryter spouts poetry and discusses events that took place before the Big Shake, drilling into Spaz the importance of keeping a written record, of writing down one’s story.

A beautiful moment happens toward the end of the story. Bean asks Ryter why he constantly makes references to being old and dying. Ryter worries that he won’t have time to finish his book. Bean’s response reveals that she understands the importance of story: ”"But would it ever really be finished?’ she asks. ‘I thought the book was your life, and it would only end when your life ends. Except it won’t really end, because people will read it and remember, so in a way you’ll live forever.’”

This book is a dystopian novel, set in a chaotic world. It’s not as dark as many other dystopian novels I’ve read, making it suitable for younger readers. Just as with other dystopian stories, Philbrick has established a jargon for his world. Fortunately, this jargon either explained or easy to figure out.

It’s really a great story. Ryter quotes Frost and Yeats, which had me cheering internally as I read. He’s a great character, wise and intelligent and courageous, inspiring Spaz to be more than just a slave to the latchboss and to fight for the things that are right and good. This is a re-read for me, but it’s definitely one I would go back to again and again.

The Dream-givers

“And you know what, Thin Elderly? Sad parts are important. If I ever get to train a new young dream-giver, that’s one of the things I’ll teach: that you must include the sad parts, because they are part of the story, and they have to be part of the dreams.”

-Lois Lowry, Gossamer

* * *

Gossamer interweaves the stories of the dream-givers and those to whom they give dreams each night. The story opens with an older dream-giver named Fastidious training the Littlest One. They give pleasant, happy dreams to an older, unmarried woman whose only companion is her dog Toby.

Soon, this woman takes in a foster child, an angry eight-year-old named John. John requires a lot of strengthening to battle the nightmares imposed by the Sinisteeds, the counterparts to the dream-givers. John’s anger stems from his parents divorce and his father’s abuse, and through the good dreams bestowed upon him, he becomes a happier child.

This book is beautiful in that Lowry understands the power of a story. The way that the dream-givers bestow dreams is through touching items in the person’s home. They gather fragments of each person’s story, both happy and sad memories. They use these fragments to provide dreams. Through the dreams, the reader learns more about each person’s story. For example, the woman never married because the man she loved was a soldier who was killed in France during the war. The memory of this man causes her to smile in her sleep.

Furthermore, the language that Lowry uses is wonderful. Littlest One comes to be known for her light touch–her gossamer touch. She gathers memories through the slightest touch, which allows her to touch living creatures, such as the dog and a butterfly, without disturbing their slumber. It’s fitting that at the end of the novel, when Littlest is finished with her training and a new littlest arrives, she is given the name Gossamer.

Moreover, the subtlety of language makes this book powerful. The dream-givers provide dreams by bestowing them upon sleeping human. The connotation of that word implies that good dream are a gift. Conversely, the Sinisteeds–dark, angry, horse-like creatures–inflict their nightmares upon the humans. The experience is painful and harsh, but the dream-givers fight the Sinisteeds through bestowing courageous dreams that the subconscious uses to fight against the pain.

All in all, this short novel is a beautiful piece of work, just like everything else Lois Lowry writes. She’s pretty much a genius.

Leviathan

According to Wikipedia (the root of all knowledge, as we know):

steampunk: (noun) “a subgenre of fantasy and speculative fiction [ . . . ] set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used–usually the 19th century, and often Victorian era England–but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the world of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date.”

* * *

Scott Westerfeld is a writer of young adult fiction whose work I generally respect, if not thoroughly admire. His dystopian series, Uglies, was marvelous, and even his contemporary spin on vampire lore  in Peeps and Last Days was intriguing and thought-provoking.

I was, therefore, extremely excited when I discovered that he released a new book in October. The display in B&N featuring this book and others was my first introduction to steampunk, and my interest was piqued.

First, the novel is gloriously beautiful in appearance. The cover depicts really fantastic steampunk art, with rich reds and golds. Inside the covers is a map depicting the setting of the novel–Westerfeld’s revised Europe on the brink of WWI:

Furthermore, the illustrations in the novel are beautiful, and even the font is pleasing.

The basic plot: Europe is divided into factions. The Darwinists (England, Russia, etc.) have built their armies on fabricated beasts composed of parts of living animals. Their shining glory is an airship called the Leviathan, which is composed of the body of a whale, as well as multiple other animals.

The Clankers (Germany, Austrio-Hungary, etc.) are the Darwinists’ enemies. Their machines are larger-than-life, as well, but these machines are just that…machines. The prime example of this is the Stormwalker.

The story has two main characters. Alek (a Clanker) is the son of the Archduke Ferdinand. When his parents are killed (in chapter 1), Alek and four of his men escape in a Stormwalker because the Germans are looking to kill him, too.

Deryn is a sixteen-year-old girl who loves to fly with her father in balloons. She poses as a boy named Dylan in order to join the British Navy as a midshipman. She successfully joins and, through an accident, winds up on the Leviathan.

The story is told from a third-person omnisicent perspective, but it switches back-and-forth between Alek and Deryn’s stories. They each get two chapters before Westerfeld switches back. Usually, this kind of narrative intrigues me, but this time, it gave me whiplash. Their stories don’t interconnect until well past halfway through the novel. I found it frustrating that Westerfeld would build up to a climactic moment, then make me sit through two more chapters of another story.

Also, the book just didn’t interest me as much as I anticipated. Westerfeld always creates his own jargon, and usually I appreciate that and catch on pretty quickly. This time, I was confused about some of the terms throughout most of the book, and I never really did figure out what other words meant.

Even the characterization annoyed me. Honestly, Westerfeld has yet to create a really strong lead character that I thoroughly support. Tally, the protagonist of Uglies, was annoying at times in her indecisiveness. The vamps in Peeps and Last Days were intriguing, but not characters I really related to. I like Alek okay in this novel, but Deryn was just ridiculous.

Also, Deryn is a girl pretending to be a guy to get in on some military action. Hasn’t this plot been overdone? And Westerfeld never gives resolution. Throughout 400 pages, no one ever officially confirms that Deryn is a girl. One of the scientists suspects, but no one else does. That was frustrating, especially when the end of the book arrives. Westerfeld, of course, leaves it wide open for the sequel (and who knows when that will be released?). I definitely won’t buy that book in hardcover. I’ll probably just check it out from the library at some point.

Finally, Westerfeld is an evolutionist. Now, I firmly believe that one can enjoy a book and disagree with the author’s viewpoint. However, Westerfeld is more extreme in this than in any of his other books, and I found that it got in the way of the story. For example, Alek (the Clanker) uses the adjective “godless” probably 5 or 6 times in the novel to refer to the Darwinists’ evolutionary beasts. “Godless” is a strong word, one that should be used sparingly, lest it lose its power. When Westerfeld creates a character who directly opposes his own worldview, and that character starts overusing emotionally charged words, it hinders the narrative.

All this to say, steampunk has the potential to be aweseme, and I’m sad that my first literary venture into the subgenre was disappointing. If you’re interested in the genre, or in machinery, or in revised history, or Westerfeld, maybe you’ll enjoy it more than I did. But I won’t exactly be recommending this novel anytime soon.

“We really have to protect people from wrong choices.”

“Do you love me?”

There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then Father gave a little chuckle. “Jonas. You, of all people. Precision of language, please!”

“What do you mean?” Jonas asked. Amusement was not at all what he had anticipated.

“Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it’s become almost obsolete,” his mother explained carefully.

Jonas stared at them. Meaningless? He had never before felt anything as meaningful as the memory.

“And of course our community can’t function smoothly if people don’t use precise language. You could ask, ‘Do you enjoy me?’ The answer is ‘Yes,’” his mother said.

“Or,” his father suggested, “‘Do you take pride in my accomplishments?’ And the answer is wholeheartedly ‘Yes.’”

“Do you understand why it’s inappropriate to use a word like ‘love’?” Mother asked.

Jonas nodded. “Yes, thank you, I do,” he replied slowly.

It was the first lie to his parents.

* * *

This excerpt from The Giver by Lois Lowry comes just after Jonas receives a memory of Christmas and family. It’s the first time he’s ever experienced real love, and it transforms him. This passage gives me chills–to think that such a society could exist with the absence of love.

In case you’ve been living under a rock and have never heard of this book, I’ll give you a brief summary. This novel takes place in a dystopian society in which every citizen conforms to the same concept of Sameness. As each child approaches the Ceremony of Twelve, he or she is given an assignment–a career choice, if you will, although a committee decides for each child based on his or her aptitude and interests. Jonas is chosen as the Receiver of Memories. He alone will receive the collective memory of society (collective unconscious, anyone?). He must carry the burden of all the emotions–happiness, love, pain, fear. He experiences poverty, war, hunger, sunshine, snow, Christmas, family, joy. No one else in the community ever knows that such extremes existed.

This is a world with color. Without art. Without music.

Without love.

It’s chilling in its portrayal. The novel beautifully explores notions of freedom. It made me realize that freedom of choice–in what I’ll wear, in where I’ll go to school, in whom I’ll marry–is something I often take for granted. What if that choice were taken away from me? Would I miss choice if I’d grown up without it?

I re-read this book this week because I was working on a paper for adolescent literature on how to use literature to teach social justice to secondary students. I chose this book and The Knife of Never Letting Go as examples of dystopian literature that can be used in the classroom. Dystopian literature is so intriguing and thought-provoking because it shows the extremes to which society could go if preventative action isn’t taken. Will we fight against those who remove choice? Will we fight for the oppressed? Can we make a change and avoid a bleak future?

Something to think about.