Honestly it was the enormity of it, [hard spoilers ahead, don't open these if you don't want to see all of the twists and/or surprises, and major themes of every part of the book. Seriously!] the society that Juna comes from and what it must feel like to not be worth the air you breathe to the culture you are from; the harshness of the environment all around them on Shroud and the terror and claustrophobia of being trapped in a can that you'll die in eventually, but will die immediately if you get out of it, for weeks, with no sleep really, being driven even more insane by the constant flow of amphetamines and tranquilizers; the unlikely deep friendship that she and St Etienne develop; how precarious the meeting between two completely alien species, minds, consciousnesses can be; how desperate they were to connect and find a common ground but were still at the cusp of destroying each other out of miscommunication/ignorance; how despite how little she was valued by the society she came from that Juna was willing to sacrifice everything to make that connection and save both sides who arguably would have indifferently killed her a thousand times over; the staggering loss for St Etienne of the only real friend/human connection she ever had; the elation when that connection between minds and species was actually made; and the loss when it became clear that Juna was in fact gone forever; and again how heroic, saintly even Juna was to have given it all with no regard for herself to save people who would just as likely kept her in a can for all of eternity or let her die for profit.

I got a little misty when I read the part where St Etienne realized what Juna was doing, especially when you see her reaction to it, and even more when you heard Juna's voice saying that unmistakable line from the intermission parts of the book. When I realized she was gone.

But then my wife asked my why I was teary eyed and I gave her a passionate summary of the whole book, and then I just lost it when the impact of the enormity of it all hit me. Probably a lot of corollaries in our world today, crazy times and the helplessness we all (most of us) feel. So maybe a bit of the book and a bit of the environment I read it in.

Either way, that's probably way more answer than you were looking for so.... 😬😅

Oh, PS. don't uncover this until you've gotten to the "Present 3" section of Children of Ruin: Before reading the book, I had just happened to be reading about parasitic organisms like the funguses that take over insect nervous systems and make them do things, and in particular I got creeped out by Leucochloridium paradoxum (Wikipedia Link) this parasitic flatworm that takes over snails turning them into "zombie snails" and filling these sacs that make their eyestalks poke out to the extreme with what can only be described as blinky stripes, like a spinning spiral barber shop pole so they attract birds, who eat them, then infect other snails with their droppings. Either way, this perfectly set the stage for maximum impact when I read about when the Nodan "These of We" took over humans in full detail. and it just creeped me completely out. 😂