augh. auuuuuuuugh. aug. ough

oh this did not assuage any of my worries about death as someone who also happens to be an anxious lesbian who thinks too much about this shit but it Does do one of my favorite things which is remind you that every day all around you are small wonders that you often forget to think about. and people can be good. people do a lot of good even if they also do a lot of bad. one of my favorite parts of the book was the list of things we'd consider magic if they didn't exist.

gilda as someone who is lonely and yet surrounded by people and the way she interacts with the people in her life is so. it's so. depressed protagonists who still love other people and the world around them but don't know how to express it or if there's even a point in it. christ. as someone who doesn't have gilda's exact mindset but does have something i call "angry optimism" (yeah lots of majorly terrible shit is happening all the time constantly but there's GOOD things too! there's GOOD things! it's not just endless misery and then you die unless you insist that it has to be that way!) this just made me feel like i'd found something i didn't even know i was looking for. 

mannnnn. i know there's more i could say about this but i can't think of it because my thoughts got blasted out of my head. despite this book relying on a trope i hate because of the absolutely debilitating secondhand embarrassment it gives me (character lies a lot until they're in too deep and then it all comes crashing down around them) i can still honestly say it might be one of my new favorites.