my high school latin teacher would be devastated to find out the extent to which my classical mythology knowledge has degraded. please forgive me, svetlana
lol sometimes i forget that already knowing exactly what happens can make a story even MORE stressful & heartwrenching. this characterization of achilles was some good horror. the words sure are pretty though.
*lmao warning: this book has frequent reclamations of the d-slur, if that's a thing of concern for you*
as a “young” “creative” “living in LA,” this book felt gratuitously & almost ingratiatingly familiar. at times, the hyper-specificity in the tiniest of details felt over-the-top & laid on too thickly, falling somewhere between tongue-in-cheek easter egg & parody of itself, but nevertheless made me smile & say "ha, i do that!" too many times to count. thank u, catie disabato, for fueling my raging individuality complex. i feel incredibly seen & lovingly roasted. i do think this will read as extremely dated in the future, but in the most endearing way possible.
after more than a year of quar, it made my heart heave the most wistful sigh & i felt… homesick? even though i still live in the same place, it's only in the most literal physical sense.
overall fun spooky lil mystery about ghosts (both literal & metaphorical) & friendships & boundaries
before i got to the real Climax, i was sure that my review was just going to be: "1.) all i could think about was how they kept using work email for personal messages; and 2.) grateful that this book stopped me from downloading t*nder again out of boredom"
it took a while but eventually the book went from just okay to actually pretty good & now i would feel bad leaving a review with only those two thoughts.
hm. almost DNF'd too many times to count. i would say it's decidedly not a """feel good""" book— for the most part, i thought it was a frustrating & poorly-handled depiction of PTSD?? it threw around quite a bit of trigger warning worthy content (TW// rape, emotional + physical abuse, suicidal ideation) SO casually? writing was also lackluster imo.
with that said, i am nothing if not a tender sop who is incapable of consuming media without projecting so there were parts at the end that still made me Feel Things.
reese witherspoon ur shootin 0 for 2 on book club picks for me 😪
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
a difficult read in the sense that everyone was so real & so human that it was frustrating to see firsthand the hesitation & the disconnect between people's thoughts/words/actions with a clarity that can only come from distance, and only be able to watch each person's part of the story try to unfold with all of the snags and tears.
anyways make therapy accessible & de-stigmatized for everyone challenge. something something intergenerational trauma & intimacy/attachment issues. i should call my dad.
do girls who were too into ellen hopkins as children grow up into women obsessed with kate zambreno? it’s me i’m girls [obligatory disclaimer: ellen hopkins is Very Bad but i unfortunately cannot deny the chokehold she had on my developing brain 😔]
goddamn. i got like, 3 lines in before i needed to take a break to try to contain my growing need to let forth a screech most inhuman. which is to say: kate zambreno did an excellent job of capturing the exact feeling i get every time i think about the francis bacon triptych that inspired this book.
jesus christ chelsea g summers knows how to USE WORDS!
the first thing that comes to mind when trying to describe dorothy daniels' voice: as decadent, exquisite & biting as the food she writes about. absolutely fitting. imagery so evocative, so visceral it made my skin crawl out of disgust at times but in the most delicious way.
absolute icon status: when dorothy said “eat the rich” about eating ass, and then killed a man, cut off his ass & literally ate it as a roast.