grace_madeleine's reviews
20 reviews

 “There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it, and if you can't fix it you've got to stand it” will probably never leave my mind.

I feel like my heart has been viscerally scooped out of my body and replaced except it wasn’t replaced correctly like there’s a deep ache there after reading this like it’s touched parts of grief I never expected would be touched by a book

the depiction of young girls and the young boys who secretly covet and worship them are so intriguingly accurate portrayed in this way. Although I see the criticisms of it, along with the fact a man wrote it, it doesn’t make the presentation of how the young, unreliable narrators see these girls who are kept away in a mysterious veil of apparent mysticism according to their young minds inaccurate in any way. While the boys think of them as idealized angels, other accounts describe them as repulsive at times, tracing the ever descriptive nature of youth and the circumstances and time in which these girls live. There is no “female rage” as booktok wants so bad to have, there is only quiet simmering until the conclusion, which we all expect, but when it happens, we are left saddened, feeling like we intimately know these girls, and in the end, it makes us no better than the teenage boys living through the girls vicariously and voyeuristically. 

the feeling of waiting and waiting for something to happen and then it doesn’t. It gets two stars because it’s Emma Cline and the descriptions are so good

I love this book so much and I love Joan Didion, the way she is able to talk about grief is amazing and has helped me getting through my own personal grief and grievances. While writing about grief, you expect a detailed timeline and precise examinations of a person’s inner mind and turmoil. There is all of that, however, there is also a poetic sense throughout the book, along with descriptions sometimes being messy, compounded by vivid memories punctuated with specific details and descriptions. I love that, because that’s what grief feels like. There is no neat, compact way to search for yourself through it, sometimes there’s just a lot of messed up feelings and memories that sometimes don’t even feel real. I highly recommend this book to anyone, whether you’ve experienced grief or not, it is so beautiful.
I love Joan Didion so much 💪💪

he’s so me