Anonymous

The beginning of this one very nearly made me quit reading. It's told in second person POV - meaning, it speaks to the reader as if they're the main character - and it insists within the very first paragraph that the reader can't look at two different overweight people. One's an officer and the other is another citizen returning to the country, and both are given the defining trait of “overweight” because that's totally important to know. The one person who presumably isn't overweight is a child, and we actually get to know his hair colour.

After weight, we get to know the officer's skin tone - and learn that the main character himself is facing discrimination because he's not white. Also, the reader's character is way too hung up on getting home to “fuck” his wife and create children while waiting to see why he's been detained. It was just plain awkward to be told those were ‘my' thoughts.

Of course, the next person we meet is once again defined by weight. She's heavyset, because apparently a majority of officers in this place are and the reader's character is the kind of jackass who immediately notices and mentally remarks on those things - along with how tired-eyed and wrinkly-clothed the next two officers look. It gets extremely old, very quickly.

Things are also... a bit too extreme to be relatable, especially from a reader-insert perspective. (But then, I already loathe second person POV, so it was an uphill battle for the author in the first place.) This is the story of an immigrant treated like garbage when trying to return home to “Amrika” - the country it means is blatantly obvious. But the guy is stalked and harassed about where he's visited over his life. Then he's cuffed and put on a plane and flown to somewhere else before he's even been searched. (Apparently they don't think to check detainees for bombs or weapons...?) And then they strip him down by cutting off his clothes instead of just asking him to get naked - and, of course, physically abuse him when he shows any resistance or demands a lawyer. (I want to pretend those parts aren't realistic, I truly do.)Apparently, just like that, with no legal process, the reader-character is thrown in a prison and treated like an animal and harassed by officers for.. suspected terrorism? It's never made entirely clear what they think he did, why they think it, or how they get away with this. (Other than, I suppose, "because they are white" which is depressingly realistic yet mediocre worldbuilding.) But they torture him, hurt him, try playing mind games on him... And for what? We never get to know. He's never told the accusations, which makes absolutely zero sense because if they're trying to beat a (likely false) confession out of him surely they'd at least give hints as to what they expect him to pretend he did in order to make it all stop.

And then, just like that, it's over. There's a hint of an almost suicide, but he decides to remain strong. And then he's taken away from the prison and released. No apologies. No cover-ups. Nothing except "we're setting you free." It's not really a resolution at all, and honestly doesn't even feel plausible in the horrible, hostile environment laid out (or the real world, frankly.)

What could possibly have convinced a bunch of hateful, abusive bigots that he truly didn't have any deadly secrets? What did they expect him to say, anyway? Did his family know what was happening? Was he released because of a legal stink caused by his family or did they just grow tired of torturing him after a month? What was life like after he was abused for so long and treated like a monster for reasons he didn't even get to know? Did he go back home and pretend nothing happened? Did he ever get to fuck his wife again, since that was once so important?

I don't know. Nobody knows. The story ends abruptly before answering any of the questions it raises.

This tale just doesn't feel like it hits the mark that it wants to. I didn't feel empathy or connection to the character because the narration tried to put me into his mind as if I were him and he thinks and observes and feels in ways which I don't. (I believe that, if I were on the outside peeking in, I would have connected better and not focused on “I'd have been worried about x instead of y” and “I wouldn't notice the people's weights like that,” etc.) I felt disgust and anger toward the people mistreating him, sure, but not to the degree I would if I had connected. The second person narrative didn't actually make me feel like I was there experiencing things with the character; it just made things more odd and confusing.

Overall, I just feel uncomfortable and weird after reading this. I don't have that sense of resolution I expect from stories. But I also want to know more, which means the story at least did keep me engaged and make me care about what happened to some degree. That's why I started to give it a middle-of-the-road three star rating. It just exists. It just is. I don't feel strongly toward either like or dislike.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized I'm just too bothered by the focus on weight and the lack of even trying to answer what excuse they used to detain him. That's why ultimately I've given this two stars. Not one, because it wasn't that terrible, but not three because the drawbacks take it down from being an average middle-ground rating.