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364 pages, Hardcover
First published July 14, 2020
The Written Review
New week, New BookTube Video - all about the best (and worst) literary couples
Unless you've been under a rock for the last four years, everyone knows Rowan and Neil hate each other.![]()
“My favourite books got happily-ever-afters— why couldn’t I?”
“There’s this word in Japanese: tsundoku,” Neil says suddenly.
“It’s my favorite word in any language.”
“What does it mean?”
He grins. “It means acquiring more books than you could ever
realistically read.”
There is so much I love about Judaism, the history and the food and the sound of the prayers, but it isolates me, too. Yet here’s someone I labeled as an enemy who was maybe feeling isolated in the same way.
Opposites attract is my favorite trope, so it made sense to start there. Because, of course, the thing about opposites: they always have a lot more in common than they think.
“i’m in love with you. you are the most interesting person i know, and i’ve never been able to talk to anyone the way i can talk to you. i’ve devoted the past four years to leaving seattle, but you… you are the best thing about this city. you are going to be the hardest to leave. i love you so much.”
“There’s this word in Japanese: tsundoku,” Neil says suddenly. “It’s my favorite word in any language.”
“What does it mean?”
He grins. “It means acquiring more books than you could ever realistically read.”
“While I love romance, I’ve never believed in the concept of soul mates, which has always seemed a little like men’s rights activism: not a real thing. Love isn’t immediate or automatic; it takes effort and time and patience.
The truth of it was that I’d probably never have the kind of luck with love the women who live in fictional seaside towns do. But sometimes I get this strange feeling, an ache not for something I miss, but for something I’ve never known.”
“Boy bands, fan fiction, soap operas, reality TV, most shows and movies with female main characters . . . We’re still so rarely front and center, even rarer when you consider race and sexuality, and then when we do get something that’s just for us, we’re made to feel bad for liking it. We can’t win.”
. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ❦ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .