I needed to sit for a few days and let this one sink in. What hurts the most about this story and how true it is - this genuinely could pass for a non-fiction story. The deeply entrenched anti-immigration sentiment that has spread and risen through Europe and Arab countries, the lack of justice and human rights that refugees deal with, and the death and loss that comes with searching for safety and a new home. It took everything in me to keep reading, because I kept wanting to put it down. The ending completely broke me.

I know there are different interpretations of the ending, and I go back and forth between two sides of it: first, the idea that the ending of the story is what would have happened if no one stepped in and helped. OR the other way around, where the entire story imagines an alternate ending if only someone had helped - throughout the journey we only saw people take advantage of Amir and his family, but Vanna's acts of kindness show that there is an alternative, if only she had acted.