We All Looked Up

“The best books talk about the things you’d always thought about,” this quote from We All Looked Up couldn’t be more true. We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach is a novel that hits terrifyingly close to home in the current world. Right off the bat, Wallach highlights the internal struggles of teenagers when they think about where they are in life, and where they are heading. The teenagers are worried about disappointing their family and friends, wasting their lives, not being successful, and not being happy. All their worries change when the news comes that an asteroid is heading towards Earth and all hell breaks loose. The teenagers stop worrying about what will happen in the future, and they start worrying about how they aren’t living their lives in the moment, and how they hurt people in the past. In the months following the announcement of the asteroid, the teenagers decide to take their lives into their own hands, make amends, and finally break some rules. They learn so much throughout the book about how to live a meaningful life that can touch others. They learn that spreading love and showing forgiveness is so much easier than they anticipated, because it’s just about being brave and true to your heart. The characters also face so many internal struggles as they think about what really matters in the last few months they have to live. The book emphasizes the thought of what matters with the term ‘Pyrrhic victories’. Pyrrhic victories, in a nutshell, are victories that matter to each individual person. “You didn’t win the game of life by losing the least. . . Real winning was having the most to lose, even if it meant you might lose it all,” this quote from the book really defines Pyrrhic victories in the game of life, if you have people that mean the world to you, and that care deeply about you, you win. That’s all. One of the biggest lessons in this book is that it doesn’t matter what you think about the world, what your religious views are, or what other people think about you, all that matters is showering people with love. “The best thing we can give people is a moment of true connection before the end,” this quote makes that point clear. All that matters in the end is the emotional connections that we were able to give to others through out our lives.