[Truly you lose something just reading these words and not hearing the beat. It’s a great song.]
Sometimes I feel so alone, I just don’t know,
Feels like I’ve been down this road before
So lonely and cold, it’s like something takes over me
As soon as I go home and close the door
Kinda feels like deja vu
I want to get away from this place, I do
But I can’t, and I won’t,
I say I try, but I know that’s a lie, ’cause I don’t
And why, I just don’t know
Thing I Now Say When Carded for Alcohol
“I’ve been old enough to buy this drink for 20 years now…”
*In their defense, I was wearing overalls at the time. But STILL.
Found myself flipping through a book before popping it in the mail to someone (it’s on its way, AFM!) and was about to post this quote until I did a search and realized I already posted it two years ago, whoops. [From a book I ultimately didn’t love but does have some nice writing.] Doesn’t seem like it was two years ago I read this but there you go.
Instead, here’s another:
Falling in love isn’t something that you decide to do, anymore than you decide on the weather. It descends on you, like a hurricane.
–from “The Post-Birthday World” by Lionel Shriver.
What that reminds me of is the Oracle talking to Neo in The Matrix: …being the one is just like being in love. Nobody can tell you you’re in love, you just know it, through and through. Balls to bones.
I read Egan’s (fairly) recent book “The Keep” right before I moved all my book thoughts over to this page (see it right at the top of the old readin page), but I think this collection was published well before that novel.
I thought these were great. Unexpected and tense. The main characters are often in moments of conflict or deception. Very different from each other. And all very finely detailed.
I’ve been reading his blog for awhile (have gotten some great recommendations from it) so I decided to try out his (from a while ago) debut.
It felt sooooo familiar that I kept checking my lists over and over to see if I had read it before and finally I realized that it was just really (REALLY) reminding me of Haldeman’s The Forever War. The difference for me being that it doesn’t have the strong underlying anti- (or “futility of”) war message. i.e., This one is more about the surface story.
Decently written but the dialogue felt very stiff to me. One of the blurbs inside calls it “The Forever War with better sex.”
I think I’ll like sequel The Ghost Brigades better, when I get around to that one, as that’s the part of this story that interested me the most.
In the end, I wound up liking this book. But if you had to choose only one of her books to read, Sharp Objects is by far the better.
It took me a while to really get involved in the story. And it didn’t have the really intense (and awesome) imagery that Sharp Objects had, nor the inviting main character. The mystery seemed much more ordinary to me / not as creative.
However, at a certain point, I really couldn’t put it down. And even the things about it I was disappointed in were still well-written. Similarly to Sharp Objects, however, there is a lot of really, really icky family stuff. So, you know, if you can’t handle that, well, you may want to avoid this.
Our June challenge book.
We both just TOTALLY loved this book. So much fantastic word play. Great plot, nice details on the L.I.C./BQE area of NYC. A completely original take on this type of book, just takes it to another level.
As DadReaction put it: you know, I usually don’t enjoy bizarre narrators but I really–EAT ME, MINNAWEED–like Lionel–and the unlocking of the Tourette’s experience is just dazzling (like when he talks about the environments that calm him). Balmslim. Slamkill. Allmiss. Really good.
Also (GR here again) reminded me of the character Adah from Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible (a great book and to my mind by far the best Kingsolver book).
The follow-up to Magic to the Bone.
I continue to really love the tattoo imagery in these books and the specifics of the magical world created here. There really wasn’t enough Zayvion in this one though. I hope he has more to do in Book 3 (I hope there is a Book 3!)
Another Tournament of Books find.
Really fast read, the print in this sucker is HUGE. And it’s got that “thick book / but huge print / too short” YA thing going on. That said, I pretty much totally loved it.
Smart college girl. Questionable boyfriend. Secret Society at pseudo-Ivy League school. Really a LOT of fun.
As with City of Refuge, bought after reading about it at the Tournament of Books.
I really didn’t have that much an idea of what to expect, and this book just got better and better as it went along. As each chapter unfolded, you realize the story is actually about something completely different than you were expecting. Expertly drawn small-town dramas, this all felt so familiar and so real.
It really takes talent to make you care about characters that are in many ways not very attractive people. Loved it!