by Omar El Akkad

Book Review by Jess Peck from Dreamland Books and Yarn

“One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.”

That was the viral tweet Omar El Akkad wrote in 2023, and it eventually became the title of this tiny but mighty book. “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This” is just over 200 pages and made up of short essays that blend memoir and political reflection. 

El Akkad writes as both a journalist and an immigrant, looking at how values like justice, equality, and human rights often vanish when they’re put to the test. He draws on moments like the War on Terror, the refugee crisis, and recent global protests to examine what silence, complicity, and delayed morality look like in real time. The essays have a way of circling back to that one sentence you tried to skim past. They wait until you’re almost comfortable, then slide it across the table again.

When things feel chaotic, I tend to go full immersion. That little voice in my head goes, “Okay, this is kinda scary. Hey, Jess — let’s read every dystopian plague book during an actual pandemic. What could go wrong?” It’s not exactly soothing, but there’s something strangely comforting about looking at worst-case scenarios and saying, “Okay. I see you.”

Lately, instead of dystopian fiction (though there was a quick stopover in “Parable of the Sower,” which is phenomenal, by the way), I’ve been turning to nonfiction. Books that don’t offer escape, but help me sit with uncertainty and try to understand it better.

I was patting myself on the back for “sitting with uncertainty” — then this line kicked the chair out from under me: “Whose nonexistence is necessary to the self-conception of this place, and how uncontrollable is the rage whenever that nonexistence is violated?”

This is one of those lines that dog-eared itself into my heart — and now I am reminded of it everywhere. In the news, in passing conversations. Or ohhh, I don’t know, heckling me from the back of my brain during a casual 3 a.m. anxiety wake-up. That’s the magic of El Akkad’s writing — it doesn’t let you stay a passive reader. You’re drafted into the conversation.

In the same way that reading about plagues gave me a strange sense of control during the early days of the pandemic, this book gave me something solid to hold onto — something honest, and hard, and worth holding. It didn’t offer answers, but it helped me sit with the questions. And right now, that feels valuable.

(And hey — if staring into the moral abyss isn’t quite what you need right now (no judgment!), come by the bookstore and chat with me about “The Favorites.” It’s a deliciously soapy, totally addictive novel set in the high-drama world of competitive ice dancing. Think sabotage, sequins, and scandal — the kind of drama that plucks your brain out of your head and drops it into someone else’s mess for a while.)