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A review by findyourgoldenhour
Abundance by Jakob Guanzon
4.0
The precariousness of living in poverty in America through the eyes of one man and his son. A story of one man trying to get his life back on track to make a better life for his kid. Systemic forces and plain bad luck make him into Sisyphus.
The main character struggles with addiction and makes some epically bad decisions, which made him more real to me. I don’t need a story about a person who does everything right. Who among us hasn’t made some self-destructive choices along the way? But the consequences of those choices play out differently when you are on the edges of society.
Regardless of whether you think he deserved some of the outcomes, it’s hard to place the impact on “personal responsibility” when you see his son needlessly suffer. It’s hard to blame a 7-year old for living in poverty.
The main character struggles with addiction and makes some epically bad decisions, which made him more real to me. I don’t need a story about a person who does everything right. Who among us hasn’t made some self-destructive choices along the way? But the consequences of those choices play out differently when you are on the edges of society.
Regardless of whether you think he deserved some of the outcomes, it’s hard to place the impact on “personal responsibility” when you see his son needlessly suffer. It’s hard to blame a 7-year old for living in poverty.