Sunil Yapa’s Your Heart is a Muscle the Size of a Fist

“And yet, there was something distinctly American about it all, a fundamental difference in perspective and place- in how they saw themselves in the world. And this was what made it so American- not that they felt compassion for mistreated workers they had never seen or known, whose world they could not begin to understand, not that they felt guilty about their privilege, no, not that either, but that they felt the need to do something about it. That they felt they had the power to do something about it. That was what made it so American. That they felt they had the power to do something- they assumed they had that power. They had been born with it- the ability to change the world- and had never questioned its existence, an assumption so massive as to remain completely unseen. The power and the responsibility to protect the people they imaged as powerless. The poor defenseless people of the Third World.”

This is another book that I kept seeing pop up on top new release reviews so I decided to check it out. The book takes place at a large protest and is told from the viewpoints of several different people that are involved in the protest in one way or another (protestors, police, political officials, etc.). Because the entire book takes place at one big scene, I found it to be a little bit slower moving, but there is some really beautiful language throughout that illustrates points on control, race, and millennial outlooks.