This book deserves a five star rating ✨✨✨✨✨
Everything it says, everything it describes, every single dialogue, they're so real.
Nothing is out of proportion, descriptive enough to be understood, emotionally touching enough to be heart wrenching, but still feels right.
"Am I living, or just passing time?" is my favourite part.
It goes beyond just a good read, it also feels nostalgic.
It reminds me of a short story I wrote for a school assignment more than a decade ago. (Well, time flies!)
Anyway, it was the first and only time I was praised highly by my teachers. They even asked about my Tumblr account! I didn't give it to them tho, my writings here are mostly just too personal for my teacher as an audience.
Well, I wasn't that sure of why exactly that story caught my teachers' attention to the point that they gave me perfect marks and asked me to read it aloud in front of the whole class. I only assumed the adults loved it more as my classmates didn't seem to be that amused when I read it to them.
It was a full four pages A4 paper about a "tukang becak" who died getting beaten by groups of people for being accused of stealing a pair of sandals at the mosque. I barely remember the whole story. I just knew that it wasn't a story about his life, but his afterlife.
What he felt after getting separated from his body, witnessing how people react to his death, who came to his funeral, what happens next and so on. At the time, I didn't realise the weight of the story I've written. It's all just what came into me as I was writing it.
My teacher said his favourite part was when the guy sat by his grave listening to what others said to him after he died. Some people apologise for the misaccusation, some people said they're glad that he died. It felt dark but heartwarming.
I had no idea what it meant, but now I do. This book somehow explains what it means to be alive and not alive, how we value ourselves and how much we care about what others see in us.
That scene probably triggered the same message.
We are the ones who gave our lives meaning, no matter what we do, everyone will have lots of different things to say, bad and good. Yet all that actually matters is whether we can accept and be content with what we've done. None of what they say has weight unless we give them weight.
