I feel like I loved so many parts of this story, but I don’t know if I fully understand it, though I don’t if I was supposed to fully understand it. I loved, loved, loved the imagery of the moon in this story. Especially when it compares it to spotlights of the blitz era. It really hits a lot harder after the tour today too, because the characters in this story are so young and they’re forced to live in this constant state of terror where they could literally be hit by a bomb that they couldn’t even see or hear until it was right on them.

Also thinking about it and talking about it after the tour, it’s insane to even put myself in this situation. If my boyfriend had come home after being in the army for an extended period of time, I would want to be elated. But Pepita and Arthur can only find excitement in a mysterious and false world that isn’t touched by the blitz, both because it isn’t real but because it’s from a time in their lives before the war. Overall, I think the tour today makes the characters more interesting, but also makes the story so much more terrifying and heavy with anxiety.