Celestial Bodies

I couldn't have read this book if I hadn't read [b:The Five Wounds 53597769 The Five Wounds Kirstin Valdez Quade https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1612030905l/53597769.SY75.jpg 83925120] two months ago. Ignorant, cruel barbarians living empty worthless lives – I would've cast it aside before page fifty. But the impact of Five Wounds lingered in me. I kept thinking back to the compassion Valdez Quade showed toward her ignorant characters; remembering their contexts and inner conflicts, the nightmare systems that produced them and that keeps them stuck; and I decided to apply that compassion and keep reading.Unfortunately, this was no Five Wounds. There's nothing worthwhile about any of these brutes: sure, they too are the product of a shitty religiofascist culture, and they too have been raised with idiotic superstitions and moronic traditions – but Alharthi's depictions are stark. She shows their nastiness and violence. She shows what passes for their inner lives, and it's pathetic: shallow, self-absorbed, completely unaware of the humanity of anyone around them. Living in fear and anger, their only purpose to breed and perpetuate the cycles of hollowness.Since I never felt absorbed by the book, my mind often wandered: to the unspeakable evils of Middle Eastern religions; to the idiocies of our own (U.S.) culture. How are we any better? Are we? I think so, and I think it's because at least some people here act with kindness, and promote education, and actively see other people as human beings with rights.Anyhow, back to the book. I'm not glad to have read it, see no point to it other than a chronicle of the worst of humanity. Read Five Wounds instead.