Welcome to the free world. We give people the power to choose. They can even choose the wrong thing. Beautiful, isn't it?

Additionally, Liesl and Po is the embodiment of what writing has always been for me at its purest and most basic--not a paycheck, certainly; not an idea, even; and not an escape. Actually, it is the opposite of an escape; it is a way back in, a way to enter and make sense of a world that occasionally seems harsh and terrible and mystifying. (From the "Author's Note" at the end).

I wish I could close my eyes and be blown into dust and nothingness, feel all my thoughts disperse like dandelion fluff drifting off on the wind. But his hands keep pulling me back: into the alley, and Portland, and a world that has suddenly stopped making sense.

Why couldn't you let me have it? Why did you have to take it? Why did you always take everything?

He who leaps for the sky may fall, it's true. But he may also fly.

But it's not about knowing. It is simply about going forward.

Dystopian novels help people process their fears about what the future might look like; further, they usually show that there is always hope, even in the bleakest future.