I went back and forth on giving this book three and four stars - for most of the book I was a hard three stars, and towards the end I found more meaning in it and almost gave it four stars. Ultimately, I settled on three stars because I think this was an incredible concept that lost a lot of its impact through the execution. I highlighted so many passages that I found really powerful about how people can turn away from those less fortunate and how the policies that determine whether a country "admits" refugees completely dehumanizes those caught in the bureaucratic mess, but Richard was not a compelling character and I found him a bit self-aggrandizing. I wanted to like this book more than I did, but I still feel like it was a meaningful book to read - I feel like there are two few books written about the callous response to refugees.