The year is 2035. You log into your social media account. The first thing you see is someone sharing an account of their journey as a model over the years. It fills you with joy to see something so positive. But then, you see some troll-like account shaming this person for how they look below their photograph. That disgusts you. You log off of social media before you can hit ‘send’ on that scathing reply you spent 15 minutes typing. Not today, you decide. Later that day, you are reminded of that random comment. You found the person who posted their photo beautiful and empowering. The person that commented below the same picture didn’t. They chose to sit behind the curtain of anonymity that the internet provided and called someone ‘wrinkly and ugly.’ That doesn’t sit right with you. You think - ‘that person’s concept of beauty must be something else entirely.’ Hmm, is it really that, though? ‘Oh! Or that maybe, they’re just a very rude and sad person hating others online.’ There. T...
*Note: Spoilers ahead* This is the cumulative experience of Shuggie from the 2020 Booker Prize-winning novel Shuggie Bain . Through this, I would like to highlight how life had been unfair for the boy, who lived through loss and anxiety all through his childhood in hopes of some escape from the desolation he had experienced. Alone without a father and his two siblings, Shuggie takes on the role of a caretaker, ensuring his mother doesn’t drink herself into an early grave. In his loneliness and misery, the only thing that remains untainted is the almost blinding devotion and love he has towards his mother -- the same disruptive alcoholic who, in her clouded, drunken haze, is unable to see anyone but herself as having some value. Her desperate, humiliating practices leave her incapable to raise her children, two of whom remove themselves from the situation as early as possible. Shuggie stays behind to care for his mother because he loves her -- for her matted mink coat and her...