A blog about books, the publishing world, and maintaining ultimate litness.
I wanted to read The Phantom of the Opera because the booktuber e m m i e often raves about it, and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical based on Leroux’s novel is definitely among my favorite musicals. Unfortunately, I think my love of the musical severely biased my opinion on the novel. While I’m super appreciative […]
The thing that most stood out to me in reading Hamnet is Maggie O’Farrell’s writing. I admire it so much. She has a way of sitting, living, and moving at the same pace as her characters rather than rushing from plot point to plot point (as I tend to do in my own writing). She […]
I had high hopes for On Chesil Beach since Ian McEwan’s Atonement is among my favorite books. This is definitely not as masterfully memorable as Atonement, which is more high concept, but I’m very impressed at McEwan’s bravery in approaching this subject matter. And the delicacy in which he approached it. Has anyone else ever […]
I’m a sucker for WW2 novels, so I wolfed down The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, but it’s definitely not perfect. There were inconsistencies and unrealistic events (like occasionally forgetting to age characters appropriately or having a beautiful meal seasoned with lemon and garnished with fresh herbs in the middle of war-time rationed France). But I […]
**inspired by “The Swing” by Jean-Honoré Fragonard hands at my back pushing forward and up, up, up, the breeze tugging at my face until I felt weightless, the chain squealing in protest, and I looked down at a ground that seemed too big and too far, and my heart jumped. And then back down, down, […]
You recommended that I ignore the feet under me. They’ll guide me. They’ll do all the work. And I bent toward you like a plant toward the sunlight and saw an asymmetrical world. It was only right. I now had character misfitting of you. And I wanted a deed to your mind. You gave […]
Their stepmother had warned them to check the license plates before they got in. It was half right and perhaps it’s because us females learn to rebel against the ingrained teaching to be scared or perhaps it’s because memory is a fickle thing, especially paired against the strong impulse of a moment, or perhaps it’s […]
I used to wonder what it’d be like— growing old with you. How you might clutch your cane in one hand and my hand in the other as we hobble down our street on achy hips and arthritic feet and how you might forget my name every once in a while or even that we’re […]
I used to sleep on my stomach, eyes and left ear buried in the crook of my left elbow, right palm pressing into my right ear. reducing my senses to touch, smell, and taste. We wouldn’t need those in sleep anyway. My momma told me, “Close your eyes and tell them to go away.” […]
I never understood the allure of the dance until it was my only excuse to be close to you and then the sidestep came naturally. The weave, fallaway, reverse, pivot. Close enough to feel your breath on my temple and see your pulse in your neck and then arm-length away, distant enough to feel […]