As the title suggests, I’m currently reading Winter’s End by Jean-Claude. So far the book is pretty interesting and switches perspectives to keep the story hidden in a bit of mystery while hinting at what’s happening. I honestly like the perspective changes because usually i get impatient when I don’t know what else is happening with the different characters, especially when they’ve split up like that.
{Spoilers ahead}
At first I thought Helen was just being selfish when she decided she wasn’t returning to the boarding school with her companion, she knew the consequences of her not coming back with Milena, but then as the story unfolds and we see more of her decisions, I can’t fault her as much as i did before. The boarding school’s real purpose comes to life, truths surface and more escapes are made after theirs. It’s like domino effects from there, and if something like this were to happen in our world, I think I’d be one of the ones to jump on board of these escapes. No one had even thought about leaving before because there were no previous escapes, but after the first 2, seeming successful ones too, the rest finally have a light to try and catch.
The students never liked the staff or the treatment to begin with, and in many ways it reminds me of the unrest happening today. People are getting fed up with all the police brutality, and after Ferguson, many people started their own protests and finally started fighting back. It’s not the only comparison you could make either, Trump triggered another. On one side, people are jumping aboard the Immigrants-are-the-root-of-all-violence-and-evil kind of thought process, but there’s also more resistance to this thinking from Latinos and immigrants in general, we’re standing together and resisting non-violently as of late. We’re cutting off ties with companies affiliated with Trump, standing up politically and debating on the topic instead of rioting or doing the equivalent, proving the racist people wrong in many ways even though its never acknowledged. Much like the resistance from the people in the book, its done quietly until the right people can come and band them together to light the fire once again.
I suppose that’s one of the reasons this book is so entertaining, it shows a negatively impacting revolution taking over the lives of the people, the life as the younger ones have grown to know it, and how everyone’s fighting to change it. It has a strong sense of realism, like the hunger games, but more within our reach and without all the fancy technology and advancements the government in that series had. It’s inspiring to see young teenagers with not much power try and make their lives better. So I’m hoping they’ll be able to defeat their opponents and finally reunite at the end of the book, because it might take a while to gain our own victories here in our own world.
