Why did the girl have to die! Why! Why! Whyyyyyyy! She was given an ENTIRE backstory and the boy didn't even have ANY history to him at all. We got emotionally connected to the girl, and then she dies almost immediately. The author hath given and the author hath taketh -- I felt like we, the readers, were just being tormented at that point.

And I can understand but don't agree with the time gap on how the boy aged. He went from young to old with no explanation at all. I get the literary concept of this timeskip in an artistic sense, but realistically speaking, it's not plausible that he lived through his WHOLE life with no friends or comrades. It's implied that he went through war. Civilization didn't advance? He didn't get tied down to his life, didn't meet any friends, he just lived life in a shack? That's unrealistic to me.

That man in the suit was also a significant plot point in the story. He seemed forgettable since he also died too, but it was an important deciding factor in the sense of humanity and ethics for the boy and girl. They were so wise in how they "passed the tests", because honestly some of us would've failed it. Even I don't know what I'd do. But this story cements the idea that you must never lose that conscience and innocence within. The world's at war, but you don't need to be part of that violence, because then that's your conscious choice to succumb to violence. JH's works are all about love. Don't lose yourself to hate.