I find that to be a very strong compliment. It takes a lot to be able to understand a person. However, as a caveat, having grown up in an inner city and attend

I find that to be a very strong compliment. It takes a lot to be able to understand a person. However, as a caveat, having grown up in an inner city and attending inner city schools all my life, I often found that those whose situations were far less fortunate then mine (or a lot of the crowd in the AP and IBO classes) were far more "real" than those from middle and upper class socioeconomic status. So while I agree it's a very strong compliment, unless you read the article (and in my opinion, experience her hardships vicariously) it might be hard to understand for some of the people who are, dare I say... less real? I also find hardships tend to very much be involved in the lives of most "real" people. They've had the veneer of society stripped away such as when a vital figure in one's life is stripped away from them, or when they're beaten up on the way home from school at the age of ten, or a police raid violently takes away a friends father in the middle of the day. Of course, everyone who reads this will of course nod their head and be happy to be in the group of people who are real, and shit... who am I to judge?