She sat at a corner table and pulled out her e-reader, flipping back to a highlighted passage. Ferrero’s prose was sharp, like a clean paper cut. It spoke of the things we don’t say to our parents, the lovers we keep in our heads long after they’ve left our beds, and the quiet realization that we are often strangers to ourselves.

She stepped out into the street, the cool evening air hitting her face. She didn't want to be one of the people who didn't exist. She pulled out her phone, scrolled past the apps and the digital files, and called her sister.

"Hey," Laura said when the line picked up. "I just read something that made me think of you. Do you have a minute to talk?"

A shadow fell across her table. It was a waiter, but for a moment, he didn't seem real. He was just a collection of movements and a tired smile. "Can I get you anything else?" he asked. "No, just the check, please," Laura said.

In the book, people weren't just characters; they were ghosts in their own lives, drifting through relationships and memories that felt both solid and illusory. Now, as Laura watched the crowds outside a small café, the title felt like a secret code. She looked at the man checking his watch, the woman laughing into her phone, and the teenager staring blankly at a storefront.

The voice on the other end was warm and real, breaking the spell of the fiction. Ferrero was right—people are complicated, invisible, and fleeting—but in that moment, as the sun dipped below the Madrid skyline, Laura felt entirely present.

The book argued that "people" as a collective concept didn't really exist—only individual, fractured stories did.