i struggled through this for the first time in the original french when i was 15 years old, in an advanced french class. i’ve read it multiple times since then (in the english, because i’ve far and away lost all of my french) and every time i’ve read it was a moment in my life when i just happened to need this story the most.

without fail, i cry through this like an absolute blubbering mess. the moment i reach the complete perfection of a line that is, “that which is essential, cannot be seen by the eye,” i can literally feel my heart crack every time i reach that bit. it is incredible how much one sentence can physically squeeze your heart.

this book reminds me how lucky i am to have the immense capacity to feel, to love without any limits, to nurture my inner child so that it thrives. to lose those things would be to lose the parts of my identity i love the most. i feel so extraordinarily seen whenever i read this story, even in the smallest of ways, and it is both deeply sentimental and deeply comforting.

thank you namjoon, for giving me an excuse to read this at this particular point in my life, and for encapsulating the gentle, unending loveliness that the little prince so effortlessly evokes. i love this book.