missy

some of my favorite short stories ive ever read i started this book last year lol and i still think abt some of the ones i read then this many months later

odd narrative style but i like odd! a few issues with the way the author tried to connect to many things at once which left some of them lacking in depth but enjoyable and interesting anyway

obsessed with this. obsessed with the writing this is exactly the kind of tone i hope to one day be able to pull off and urgh. just obsessed

every second i wasnt reading this i was thinking abt it what a freakin page turner

thought i knew where this was going multiple times but by the end i was so pleasantly surprised...and content bc there were so many opportunities for cop outs that wouldve been easy but so unsatisfying and im glad that was not the route taken. nat cassidy on my list of authors i will definitely keep up with for sure

reaaaly unsure of how i feel about this one it had me going crazy with intrigue in the first half and then things started to come together and realizing what was going on was just kinda disappointing... also i read this with my mom whos an addict in recovery and it would have been nice if i had known going in how much drugs and the process/feelings of getting high would be described. just a note for anyone with addiction issues to read with caution

oh honey is exactly what i said upon finishing

THE GRIEF IS NEVER ENDING. BUT HONESTLY SO IS THE LOVE

i am left conflicted... i actually love endings like the one here But i absolutely feel like this is a story that relies on decisive storytelling and needed the hand to be pushed one way or the other to be anything more than mid. took me like three weeks to read too

was forced at gunpoint to start this series

yeah ok.. im in it now

bachira ... i would die 4 u

I also had the fear that with the right photographer, the real me might accidentally be captured—that in looking at the photo, suddenly everyone's eyes would widen and they'd actually see me for the very first time: Oh my God—you're a soulless pervert!

absolutely insane and im struggling for words... i laughed out loud more times than i ever could have expected to... the writing here is amazing you really feel slimy and perverted stuck inside celestes head but there is also a lot of dark humor interspersed throughout that caught me off guard but it was needed and it worked perfectly. i would never read this again

Every girl in the world is a little bit me, and every girl in the world is a little bit mine.

take this how you will. but this made me believe in romance

Burnings are the work of men. They have always burned us. Now we are burning ourselves. But we're not going to die; we're going to flaunt our scars

the stories in this collection i liked (unamuno's boxes, anita and happiness, & the solitary ones) i LOVED and i would give 4.5-5 stars and theyre the only reason im giving this collection 2 stars instead of 1 because lord have mercy the rest of this was mid at best and downright stinky at worst

i dont even know where to start i feel fucking crazy. the way tana french makes you feel like you know her protagonists so thoroughly that finishing the book leaves you with kind of grief like saying goodbye to a friend. the prose here is so beautiful that at times i had to stop reading and just let what i'd read sit with me.

“Do you see now why I believe in miracles? I used to imagine time folding over, the shades of our future selves slipping back to the crucial moments to tap each of us on the shoulder and whisper: Look, there, look! That man, that woman: they're for you; that's your life, your future, fidgeting in that line, dripping on the carpet, shuffling in that doorway. Don't miss it. How else could such a thing have happened?”

-

I think it was only in that moment I believed she was dead, this girl I had never seen alive. I'll never be free of her. I wear her face; as I get older it'll stay her changing mirror, the one glimpse of all the ages she never had. I lived her life, for a few strange bright weeks; her blood went into making me what I am, the same way it went to make the bluebells and the hawthorn tree.

this is such a privileged look at getting sober its almost insane. you mean all it takes to free yourself from alcoholism is yoga, green juice, and a trip to italy? GROUNDBREAKING..! rather than how to quit drinking like a woman this is how to quit drinking like a rich (white) straight woman. i would recommend this to someone like bella hadid or kylie jenner only

i think thats about enough of that for me even excluding the weird rape analogy the last 100 pages has been a slog to get through i really really enjoyed the first three parts of this but now its just repetitive like we get it i simply cant care anymore 400 pages too long + weirdo + wasted my time + L + ratio

i have to kill myself

sorry but not i feel fucking crazy right now i cant be subjective in anyway about this book because while i KNOW its not perfect and i can easily see why other people would dislike it but i dont care it worked so perfectly for MEEEE i LOVE unreliable narrators i love unsolved mysteries (and i have my thoughts about that one hehe) i love cassie my wife i love detective novels i love characters who spiral from Just A Guy to someone put a bullet in my fucking brain this guy stinks jesus what an idiot Guy. I LOVED THIS it was all i thought about when i wasnt reading it and the length didnt bother me at all i genuinely loved the meandering descriptions and thought tangents. a new favorite easilyyy

I feel physically sick to my stomach and my whole body hurts from crying. this took me through the fucking ringer, making me weep for these strangers as well as for my own father now a year and a half gone as well as for my mother who is still around but who i find myself spontaneously crying over a night because dealing with one parents death has left me utterly crippled by the facts of death and how it comes for all of us, even for the ones you love and cant imagine being without. grief is so complex and so individual but there is something warm and comforting about sharing in someone elses, seeing parts of your own mourning reflected back and feeling connected to someone hundreds of miles away that you've never met all because you've shared in this specific kind of loss together, one that we will all have to wade through eventually. but not alone, even if all you've got is a connection through text on a page

i guess im in the minority here but (most of) this was forgettable at best and dispassionate at worst. the majority of poems had much less depth than any piece ive read from vuong before and i feel really disappointed by this collection

I talked to God but God never wore my shoes.