By eighteen, he knew these people, who had gone to college and could live wherever they wanted, had nothing he didn’t have. They weren’t any smarter, this was clear. They weren’t quicker. They weren’t even more ruthless. If anything, they were softer. But they had advantages. Or they had expectations. Or assumptions. It was assumed they’d go to college. It was assumed they’d find jobs befitting their upbringing and education. There were no such assumptions in Mokhtar’s world.
A hard-scrabble life can breed ingenuity and resourcefulness. It can also breed despondency, which makes for a much more lame story. Glad this book is about the former.
