natlbugz's reviews
370 reviews

 “You can’t control how other adults behave, and stressing about it diminishes your power. You’ll never reach the full potential of your life if you continue to allow stupid things or rude people to drain your life force.” 

“Let Me live my life in a way that makes me proud. Let Me make decisions that align with my values. Let Me take risks because I want to.” 

“When you let the world around you impact your emotional state and peace of mind, you become a prisoner to these external forces.” 

“No one else’s wins are your losses. That’s why you have to change the way you look at other people’s success.” 

“I suppose that’s what dying does. You don’t have long left to tell your stories, so secrets don’t hold the power they once did.”

"But they were just women, being anything they wanted to be. Being free. All of them different ages, from all sorts of places. You came to know their stories – the homes they had grown up in, the husbands they had left, the hurt they still carried. Most of them told you that they hadn’t ever fitted in before. That, until they’d found the Screamers, it had felt like they were playing an elaborate game, trying to follow its rules. Now, they didn’t have to do that. They could express themselves, be the people they were supposed to be."

“It doesn’t matter how many people you know, or where you go. You’re left with yourself.”

Lines like:
 "Sometimes the biggest losses lead to the greatest gains. Sometimes the darkest days end in the brightest nights."

And Gran’s final lesson? Absolute perfection:
 "Love cannot be stolen. Not by anyone. Those who do not know love place no value upon it. But people like us, who do know it, possess a treasure that can never be taken away." 

 “Maybe there were no villains in my mother’s story at all. Just men and women, trying to do their best by each other. And failing.” 

“Does it ever get easier?" she asked. I nodded. "It does," I said. You reach a point where you realize that your life must go on regardless. You choose to live or you choose to die. But then there are moments, things that you see, something funny on the street or a good joke that you hear, a television program that you want to share, and it makes you miss the person who's gone terribly and then it's not grief at all, it's more a sort of bitterness at the world for taking them away from you.”

And that quote—“A second chance doesn't mean you're in the clear. In many ways, it is the more difficult thing. Because a second chance means that you have to try harder. You must rise to the challenge without the blind optimism of ignorance.”—just crushed me. It perfectly encapsulates the quiet weight of the story and the way it reflects on survival, resilience, and what it means to keep going when you’re not sure why. 

"We all imagine terrible things. It’s a way of preparing ourselves, or a way of protecting ourselves: if I imagine it, it surely won’t happen. But that’s the thing about life: both your wildest dreams and your worst nightmares can come true." 

“I wonder if, as you get older, you stop missing people so fiercely. Maybe growing up is just focusing on what you've got, instead of what you don't.” 

“Could it be as simple as that? Could love be not grand gestures or empty vows, not promises meant to be broken, but instead a paper trail of forgiveness? A line of crumbs made of memories, to lead you back to the person who was waiting?” 
And of course, the elephants. Their grief and ability to move on offer such a profound contrast to how humans handle loss. 

“One of the most amazing things about elephants mourning in the wild is their ability to grieve hard, but then truly, unequivocally, let go. Humans can't seem to do that.”