I wish I had read this book sooner. I kept putting it off, not because of the difficult subject matter, but because I don't normally 'feel like' reading contemporary fiction. I then watched the movie first, because I'm one of those people who prefers to do that, and as soon as it was over I knew I had to get my hands on this book. Starr's story mirrors so many children and teens in the US who aren't often acknowledged in popular media. But this is a story that we all should know and internalize, because unfortunately it keeps happening in real life. As I was reading, I kept thinking about Margaret Atwood talking about The Handmaid's Tale and how it seems so extreme, but she didn't include anything that hadn't happened in real life. The same applies here, and we still have time to change it.