"I suppose that's life. Nothing is ever simple. Or easy. It's all pain and heartache. Worry and fear. Stress and anxiety. If you have one2.5 Stars
"I suppose that's life. Nothing is ever simple. Or easy. It's all pain and heartache. Worry and fear. Stress and anxiety. If you have one sliver of happiness you have to hold onto it with everything you have."
"My sweet, Dandelion. May you always be as free as the birds, as wild as the flowers, and untamed as the sea."
Shhhhhttt- I'm such an outlier with this one out here on outlier island... I didn't really like this book.
The2.5 Stars - I'm just as surprised... sigh
Shhhhhttt- I'm such an outlier with this one out here on outlier island... I didn't really like this book.
The characters weren't very likable and I thought I really would have liked the concept of the story but as I read on and amazing enough I did finish it- I found myself just not being interested.
I'm really behind on reviews- will post a full one in the next couple of days!
It's about time I start this one... bring on the anguish ...
“The truth of course is that if people really were as happy as they look on the Internet, they wouldn’t spend so much damn time on the Internet, because no one who’s having a really good day spends half of it taking pictures of themselves. Anyone can nurture a myth about their life if they have enough manure, so if the grass looks greener on the other side of the fence, that’s probably because it’s full of shit.”
“Nothing is easier for people who never do anything themselves than to criticize someone who actually makes an effort.”...more
5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in loveeeee stars!
“But it takes a good friendship to establish a solid foundation. I don’t want to only be 5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in loveeeee stars!
“But it takes a good friendship to establish a solid foundation. I don’t want to only be your lover. I want to be your person. The one you go to first. The one you think of when you wake up. The one … just the one.”
Omg. I swear, I want to crawl into the pages of this book and live within the story!! ...more
"It's easy to say that we should have done everything differently, but perhaps you wouldn't have acted differently either. If you'd been afraid, if"It's easy to say that we should have done everything differently, but perhaps you wouldn't have acted differently either. If you'd been afraid, if you'd been forced to pick a side if you'd known what you had to sacrifice. Perhaps you're not as different from us as you hope" ...more
˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗ “Never trust people who don't have something in their lives that they love beyond all reason.”
“If you are honest, people may deceive you.˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗ “Never trust people who don't have something in their lives that they love beyond all reason.”
“If you are honest, people may deceive you. Be honest anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfishness. Be kind anyway. All the good you do today will be forgotten by others tomorrow. Do good anyway.”
‿︵‿︵‿୨ ୧‿︵‿︵‿
╰┈➤˗ˏˋBeartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain.
This is my very first Fredrik Backman novel and lemme just say- I loved it. There is SO much explored in 432 pages. But let me just leave the opening lines right here for you-
╰┈➤˗ˏˋ "Late one evening towards the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barreled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else's forehead and pulled the trigger. This is the story of how we got there."
I mean, omg right-
The novel takes place in a small town called Beartown in Sweden. The town has definitely seen better days as it is declining more and more. Industry is withering away with many people looking to live elsewhere. What does however keep this town together is their equal admiration and love the ice hockey team. The people of Beartown are most definitely crazy and obsessed over ice hockey and can’t get enough of it (and can’t get away from it ha ha ha). Much of that I can relate to coming from Boston Mass where we live for hockey as well.
However, this admiration for the hockey team hides the toxic culture of the team and the some of the people in the town. You slowly begin to realize there is a large amount of sexism and toxic masculinity among the people of Beartown.
This is further highlighted when the teams most prominent and star player commits an act so heinous that you’ll want to punch him in the throat. This act essentially has a ripple effect on the town causing a major divide in loyalty that will change the lives of everyone forever.
“Hate can be a deeply stimulating emotion. The world becomes easier to understand and much less terrifying if you divide everything and everyone into friends and enemies, we and they, good and evil. The easiest way to unite a group isn't through love, because love is hard, It makes demands. Hate is simple. So the first thing that happens in a conflict is that we choose a side, because that's easier than trying to hold two thoughts in our heads at the same time. The second thing that happens is that we seek out facts that confirm what we want to believe - comforting facts, ones that permit life to go on as normal. The third is that we dehumanize our enemy.”
╰┈➤˗ˏˋ So in terms of the writing and the pace of the story, it starts off pretty slowly. This is something I liked as Backman slowly builds up what the town and its people are like.
“The people of Beartown love the fact that the climate is so inhospitable, because not everyone can handle it: that reminds them of their own strength and resilience.”
This buildup allows you to understand what type of people the story will be dealing with and helped me understand how each of them thinks. This also allowed you to understand the complex relationship each of the characters in the story have with each other.
“There are few words that are harder to explain than "loyalty." It's always regarded as a positive characteristic, because a lot of people would say that many of the best things people do for each other occur precisely because of loyalty. The only problem is that many of the very worst things we do to each other occur because of the same thing.”
“Bitterness can be corrosive. It can rewrite your memories as if it were scrubbing a crime scene clean, until in the end you only remember what suits you of its causes.”
╰┈➤˗ˏˋ This book is complex in the sense that it gave me hope, inspiration, made me feel anger, sadness, disparity. It's all consuming and your feelings are all over the freaking place it's so hard to put it into words.
Truly incredibly written, thought provoking and a gritty yet all too realistic novel.
“Everyone has a thousand wishes before a tragedy, but just one afterward.”...more
I've said it before, but I'll say it again. There is something about Olivie Blake's pro“Hello children. It’s time for death.”
5 Brilliant Stars!
I've said it before, but I'll say it again. There is something about Olivie Blake's prose that is so incredibly captivating and alluring that it demands attention. Her words live in my mind long after I finish one of her books and I find that I can't stop thinking about them. She's brilliant.
In Masters of Death we follow Viola, a vampire and a struggling real estate agent. If she wasn't already struggling, the house she needs to sell is haunted. The ghost haunting the house was murdered and in order to move on, he needs to solve his murder.
We have a lively bunch of characters that are a hysterical motley crew if you will - including a cranky ghost, a well-meaning vampire, a pair of annoying angels, a sly demigod and the godson of Death. Death with a capital D. While the characters are all supernatural and for the most part immortal, the book is really about humanity. They re all longing for feeling and human connection and the sensitivity of time.
There is just something very interesting regarding discussions of morality within Masters of Death. The discussions around pain and how it ends up that it's life that allows us to feel anything at all was something that I really enjoyed reading about. Every theme explored was done so brilliantly, in beautifully constructed moments and captivating conversations.
“I wish to feel something much, much larger than I am, the girl’s heart replies. I wish to stand on the edge of ruination and defeat, to leap into a chasm full of danger. I wish to feel my blood turn cold with fear and my cheeks burn bright with shame; I wish to feel joy that fills my lungs, and sadness that swells within me like a current. I wish to feel so much and so deeply that it washes over me in waves. I wish to drag myself towards something; I wish to lose pieces of myself along the way. I wish for hunger that drives me, for passion that fulfills me, for sensations of taking and having and losing and wanting, and I wish for all of it to come with a price, and a steep one—and then I wish for the courage to pay. Isn’t it all good because it’s something? she asks. Isn’t it all bad because beneath it—any of it, her wish sighs—I may collapse? Mayra”
“But two centuries of anger had not served him nearly as well as one day of honesty.”
“To love, to forgive, to lose, to live - it was always a choice, and thus, the fact that he was a mortal was finally one worth celebrating. Because it would end! Maybe that was the entire secret, and therefore the whole thing was actually astonishingly simple. That over and over, he was presented with the same impossible decision - live and suffer, love and grieve - but still, every time, with all his being, his answer was and would always be yes. It would be difficult and painful, and however it ended, it would end - but still, he could choose it. To live, to love; it was always a choice, and inherently a brave one, to face down certain doo, with open arms.”
“Things are so much sweeter when they have an ending; things are so much more painful when they can be ripped away.”
There is just something about supernatural and immortal creatures being thrown into the modern day world that, when done masterfully -I enjoy a lot. Masters of Death is a masterclass in showing, not telling, and I thoroughly enjoyed it from start to finish.
"He took another drag from the blunt as her fingers skated down, running lightly over his cheek and down to his mo5 Heartachingly Beautiful Stars!!
"He took another drag from the blunt as her fingers skated down, running lightly over his cheek and down to his mouth. The dark tips of her nails traveled the shape of his upper lip, curving with it, and in another version of this precise moment, he said, Regan, come closer, let's see what happens, let's see how the stars shine on your skin."
Where do I even start?
Tattoo this book on my body, inject it into my veins!
You know that feeling when you can feel emotion stirring in your chest and it just seems to bubble up your throat to the point you audibly gasp and that raw emotion just steals the tears from your eyes? Just me? Okay, well I got that feeling so often during this book- it held me captive for the entirety of it's 288 beautifully poetic pages.
This book has captivated and held me hostage in a way that no other romance or even general fiction novel has before. It's beautiful, literary, philosophical, and magical without being fantastical yet also romantic, and intimate. It's like baring a part of your soul to another, so that they can crawl inside and live there. Make a home there, in your mind and soul. The affinity that comes with a conversation with someone who doesn't just simply listen to what you're saying but with someone who engages with what you're saying no matter how little they understand- simply because they find you interesting.
It channels the feeling of letting someone into your space, of letting someone see you- and not the you that you let the rest of the world see on a day to day basis but the you without makeup, without the facade used to protect yourself from complete vulnerability - to let them see the real, raw and uncut you. Because they not only see you, they see through you.
One of the most beautiful romance novels I've read in a long time - It is truly underrated and I can't even understand that? I want to scream from the rooftops what an amazing book it is- I wish everyone would read it. I was moved to think deeply about love, life, time, art- astonishingly enough math lol just not on as deep of a level.
Told in third person with alternating points of view, we follow two characters in this story-
╰┈➤ Charlotte Regan aka Regan, who has mental health issues, has a court-ordered psychiatrist, and has been arrested for counterfeiting art. Regan is a curious and complex woman, a compulsive liar and has plenty of issues with family - specifically her mother.
╰┈➤ Rinaldo Damiani aka Aldo, is a pot-smoking, leather jacket wearing, motorcycle riding doctoral student of theoretical mathematics who has an incredibly low rating on ratemyprofessor.com. He's anti-social, clinically depressed and OCD.
I love that the point of views alternate between our two characters, they play so well off of each other- in the way that with only Regan's POV , Aldo would come across boring and bland. And without Aldo's POV, Reagan would come across as manic, unpredictable and extremely unstable.
This book is very cerebral and neurotic in a way that I find so appealing-almost abstract at times. Based on the two characters you would imagine that they would be one big hot mess but they aren't - they simply just complete the other. It starts off intimate, in a way where it's just all the little things you notice when you , well notice someone, when you find yourself intrigued by them- their scars, the way their hair falls, the quirk of their smile. These things that you just want to collect and bottle up to savor forever. Tumbling together towards a more candid form of romance.
"If this is what it is to burn, he thought, then I will be worth more as scattered ash than any of my unscathed pieces."
"I want you to say everything, anything. I want to have your thoughts, I want to bottle them, I want to put them in my drawer for safekeeping."
What is Alone With You In The Ether if not a collision of forces? A meeting between two people who get to connect and grow to understand each other on a deep level. It almost feels like a fated meeting if either of them believed in such a thing. This is something Regan touches on in the first pages of the book, in her hypothesis about her and Aldo meeting. Later on in the book, Aldo even says that he’s toyed with the idea of the multiverse and essentially says that he’d rather there be one universe, a universe where they meet, one Aldo and one Regan, not multiple possibilities, or multiple versions of themselves.
Honestly, I could go on forever about this book. It's amazing, it's art, it's life, it's love, it's vulnerability, it's profound and thought provoking. Olivie Blake doesn't traditionally write linear stories from my experience so if you need something with absolute structure she might not be for you, but if you love a Jackson Pollock of an author who can give Shakespeare a run for his money it's an absolute must to read this book.
╰┈➤To quote Lei, another reviewer "Olivie Blake could do Romeo and Juliet but Shakespeare couldn't do Alone With You in the Ether"- Realer words have never been spoken.
I really could have highlighted this book in it's entirety because there are so many beautiful scenes and quotes but here's some of my top favorites in addition the the ones above :
The sentence rung with familiarity. Regan wasn't sure how to identify what specifically had struck her as relatable, but she felt certain that whatever mental space Aldo had just occupied, she had been there before herself.
They both paused, sipping from their respective thoughts. "I like it," he said. "What?" He loosened the wine from his lips. "Your brain."
Three conversations, Regan marveled, and she already understood that was the highest compliment in Rinaldo Damiani's arsenal. Clearly he was onto something with his rule of sixes.
˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗
"So within those parameters, some people are exponential functions, but still largely predictable. Regan" Charlotte, he reminded himself too late, but dismissed it as a forgone error- "isn't just difficult, she's convoluted. She's contradictory- honest even when she lies," he offered as an example, "and rarely the same version twice. She's confounding, really intricate. Infinite." That was the word, he thought, clinging to it once he found it. "She'd have to be measured infinitely in order to be calculated, which no one could ever do."
˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗
He could feel it again, the buzzing she'd come into the room with vibrating there in that empty space, now occupied by the tremors of possibility. She could fill it with herself, she could shove him away, she could pull him closer. She could pry apart his ribs and leave him there, gutted, doe-eyes wide with, I didn't think it'd be so wet.
He waited there, in the gruesome image of himself spilling crimson over her hands, seeping into the beds of her narrow fingernails and forever staining the sheets and the floors - and, if he were lucky, her conscience-when she matched the distance towards him that he'd already undertake towards her. He could smell her hair, her skin, her lack of hesitation. The other half of her truths was a lie.
˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗
"These keys of mine," she said. "If you could have one of them." It was an implied question: If you could open only one part of me for your consumption, for your delectation, for the whims of your carnivorous mind, which part would you wish to see?
˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗
How mundane, Regan thought disdainfully. How small your concerns. How very little the scope of your understanding. "And why don't you?" "Because I'm painting." It's obvious, don't you see it, can't you hear it? His name is written on my skin, he scarred me, I've changed my entire shape for having fit within the enormity of his thoughts, and now the only words I know are lines and color.
˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗
She didn't feel whole with Aldo inside her. Instead, she felt splintered; like she became, in his hands, an infinite number of pieces, an entire infinity herself. Like she and eternity and omnipotence were the same, or like omniscience could be equated to the sound of his ragged breath in her ear. She wanted him to mess her up, deplete her, to deliver her to something lesser, something baser. Something less inclined to rational thought, and instead diminished only to sensations.
˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗
“Can you love my brain even when it is small? When it is malevolent? When it is violent? Can you love it even when it does not love me?”...more
♥︎ Heather ⚔
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