This book may be short in length, but it has plenty to say. While the writing itself is beautiful, the ideals of its main character are what I find problematic. I don’t know if it is the intention of the author to make the main character an unreliable narrator but it certainly feels as though the reader is not getting the full picture. This post apocalyptic world is one in which individuality is taken in favor of the collective but no context is given as to why this happened. No reasoning behind why the government is so committed to maintaining the status quo. The ideals that the main character espouses are very surface level and most people would agree with them in theory. For example, the idea that people should not trust a government not working in their interest or being against trusting people to lead who lack the requisite knowledge to do so. But none of these things exist in a vacuum. When the main character presents a chance to push the society forward and they rebuff him, he automatically attributes that to incompetence or fear. But couldn’t it also be an understanding of history and being unwilling to repeat it? The author is getting at this idea that government should be willing to trust its constituents with power and responsibility. To not think the worst of them. To not hoard that knowledge for themselves because there is value in group discussion. But society also has a tendency to voluntarily cede control to those in authority because they don’t want the responsibility. The main character’s disillusionment with society is what bothered me the most. To grow up in a society as devoid of purpose as this that they would allow people with so much potential (i.e. the main character) to serve in positions where that same potential is wasted. To then turn around and abandon people in similar circumstances because he views them as a hindrance to human evolution. He didn’t even consider the possibility that they could be convinced. That their initial reaction is all they will ever be when his whole story up to that point runs contrary to that idea. That somehow they aren’t capable of the same growth that he experienced if given the same opportunity. It’s this type of exceptionalism, pridefulness, and isolationism that probably led to the downfall of the society he so desperately wants to return to. His inability to see it leaves me wondering if this oversight is intentional to get the reader asking these questions of society themselves or if the author truly agrees with this sentiment. It is wrong to attribute the words and actions of a character to the author themselves but it at least begs the question if nothing else. I agree with the themes of having autonomy over our own lives but I also see value in government and a society that works in concert towards a common good.