A recurring theme I kept noticing in this book was abuse. There were abusive spouses, abusive boyfriends/girlfriends, abusive parents etc. These were in one category, but that was not all the abuse. The characters abused their siblings, their friends, and even people on the streets less fortunate than themselves. The story of the boy whose face was eaten by the pig especially got to me. Here is a young man who has had a terrible life, but these other kids, who have also had terrible lives, seek him out simply to be cruel to him. Fathers are continuously abusive, both to their children and to their wives and friends seem to only be waiting for the other to let his guard down in order to exploit them as they did to Cut when he fell asleep.
What did you make of all this recurring abuse? Do you think it is just a way of striking out against the hard life they have or do you think it is something else?
It seems like pretty classic displacement to me: everyone's fed up about their lives, and so they're taking it out on everyone else.
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