empathize

To empathize with her is not to presume to understand her; it’s to get caught in the riptide of her mysterious pleasures and pains.

Yesenia Pérez, who received her undergraduate degree from UC Santa Barbara in June and will be studying at the campus in the fall for a master’s in technology management, said she empathized with both sides.

We can empathize with the calamities that prompted these characters to take such foolish chances, but we would never make those choices ourselves.

Instead, they can empathize, telling them, “It makes sense — we are all so scared.”

Her fans didn’t and don’t simply read her, they empathize with her characters’ insecurities about their changing bodies and lives.