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They say I looked back out of curiosity, but I could have had other reasons. I looked back mourning my silver bowl. Carelessly, while tying my sandal strap. So I wouldn’t have to keep staring at the righteous nape of my husband Lot’s neck. From the sudden conviction that if I dropped dead he wouldn’t so much as hesitate. From the disobedience of the meek. Checking for pursuers. Struck by the silence, hoping God had changed his mind. Our two daughters were already vanishing over the hilltop. I felt age within me. Distance.The futility of wandering. Torpor.I looked back setting my bundle…
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“Does your mother know you drive like that?” You were angry and I was mortified. He was younger than I am now, blonde, in a black leather jacket some student would scavenge for seven bucks at the thrift store ten years later, skid marks and all. In my memory, he smirks, or maybe that was you. I like to think of you, still, as the foreteller of men’s stupidity, shaking your head while you speak as if you know the decision is already set. Any support to the opposition is merely a matter of liability. You asked for his name, remember?You told him you knew his mother (you didn’t) and she would…
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3/5 I read The Book of Love at the recommendation of a friend, and although my review leans towards the more negative side, I’m still glad I did. The novel’s plot is incredible—three teenagers come back from the dead under mysterious circumstances (after an even more mysterious disappearance) and are tasked with completing a series of challenges to remain in the mortal world. What I liked: I’m a huge fan of magical realism, and this story revolved around a fascinating premise. It has its own universe with its own lore, and I loved piecing together the details. What I disliked:…
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Into the topaz the crystalline signals of Manhattan the nightplane lowers my body scintillate with longing to lie positive beside the electric waters of your flesh and I will never tell you the meaning of this poem: Just say, “She wrote it and I recognize the reference.” Pleaselet it go at that. Althoughit is all the willingness you lendthe worldas when you picked it upthe garbage scattering the coolformalities of Madison Avenueafter midnight (where we walkedfor miles as though we knew the woodswell enough to ignore the darkness)although it is all the willingness you lendthe worldthat makes me wantto clean…
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1/5 Let me preface by saying this: I am not usually a romance reader. I’ll read them occassionally, especially if recommended by a friend, but it’s not a genre I seek out on my own. That being said, while I was impressed with the non-romantic subplot of Great Big Beautiful Life, I thought the romance was incredibly underwhelming. This is the first book I’ve read by Emily Henry, and unfortunately, I did not find that her writing lived up to the hype. If I have to read one more sentence about knees knocking together under the table, I am going…
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4/5 This was one of the coziest fantasies I’ve read in a long time. If I’d managed to time my reading to be more in tune with the seasons, I would have saved this for the middle of winter. It’s as warm and comforting as one of the cups of coffee served at the books’ namesake fictional cafe. As far as fantasies go, I thought this was incredibly accessible. There’s not much mental labor required to make sense of the worldbuilding, and the coffee shop that the main narrative focuses on is similar enough to a real world coffee shop…
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Love is like a garden in the heart, he said. They asked him what he meant by garden. He explained about gardens. “In the cities,” he said, “there are places walled off where color and decorum are magnified into a civilization. Like a beautiful woman,” he said. How like a woman, they asked. He remembered their wives and said garden was just a figure of speech, then called for drinks all around. Two rounds later he was crying. Talking about how Charlemagne couldn’t read but still made a world. About HagiaSophia and putting a round dome on a squarebase after nine…
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5/5 To me, this book is flawless. I recently read it for the third time (well, technically, I listened to the audiobook, which I would recommend for a re-reading, although not for a first read). Doerr’s characters are desperately clinging to life, empathetic even in their glaring flaws, and courageous in their own, occasionally misguided, ways. Their worlds are fully fleshed out and whole. With every scene change, I feel like I’ve been transported to the world of the given character. From ancient Constantinople to the prison camps of the Korean War, the book’s settings feel tangible and delicate. It’s…
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First, you must realize you’re homesick for all the lives you’re not living. Then, you must commit to the road and the rising loneliness. To the sincere thrill of coming apart. Divorce yourself from routine and control. Instead, find a desert and fall in. Take the trail that promises a view. Get lost. Break your toes. Bruise your knees. Keep going. Watch a purple meadow quiver. Get still. Pet trail dogs. Buy the hat. Run out of gas. Befriend strangers. Knight yourself every morning for your newborn courage. Give grief her own lullaby. Drink whisky beside a hundred-year-old cactus. Honor everything.…
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Emily Vance Brown 