A devastating portrait of how a world with borders functions. Amir, a young boy who wakes up on an alien beach in the aftermath of a shipwreck, immediately brings us into the complexity of migration and the dehumanization and desperation that comes with chasing survival. Strangers are kind and cruel, the world is treacherous and bewildering, and home is wherever you can find it. El Akkad asks us to witness this story, and it was a precise, beautiful joy to read.