After the quiet beauty of All the Light We Cannot See, I picked up something completely different — The Wager by David Grann. I wasn’t expecting to be pulled into such a raw, unforgiving story of survival, but once I started, I could not look away.

This book is based on the true story of a British shipwreck in the 1700s but it’s not just about the wreck. It’s about what happens when survival is no longer noble, and when men are pushed beyond their limits. It made me uncomfortable, reflective, and honestly, a little disturbed in the way good nonfiction sometimes does.

Grann doesn’t glamorize the story. He lets the facts speak, and somehow, the silence between those facts was just as loud. I found myself wondering: What would I have done? Who would I have become? Would I have chosen loyalty, or self-preservation?

The Wager is the kind of book that asks hard questions and doesn’t give easy answers. It reminded me that history isn’t just something we read it’s a mirror that often shows us who we are capable of becoming.

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