AJW says this book is like moonshine: “It’s gonna burn like hell going down.” Then he asks, “If I promise you that this book has a happy ending, does that make it better? Does that make any of it easier to swallow?”

And honestly? No. I don’t think a happy ending is supposed to make the burn disappear.

Frankly, I want them to burn. Not because I think suffering automatically makes a story better, but because I don’t want these lives made easier to swallow for my comfort as a reader. That burn is a reminder that what I’m reading about was lived, not just written. And obviously, the burn I experience as a reader is only a fraction of what it was to actually live the lives AJW depicts. I can close the book. I can take a breath. I can remind myself there’s a happy ending. The people whose lives these stories reflect didn’t get that distance.

Knowing there’s a happy ending gives me something to hold onto. It tells me the pain has somewhere to go. But it doesn’t make the pain itself less real.

So no, AJW. Don’t make it easier to swallow.

Let it burn.

Because I get to put the book down. They didn’t get to put their lives down.