Ky

“He looks at her for a long time. Finally he puts his hand carefully on the big boulder and caresses it tenderly from side to side, as if touching her cheek. “I miss you,” he whispers. It’s been six months since she died. But Ove still inspects the whole house twice a day to feel the radiators and check that she hasn’t sneakily turned up the heating.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“Most types of domestic abuse are completely legal.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“But some lesbians tried to restrict the definition of abuse to men’s actions. Butches might abuse their femmes, but only because of their adopted masculinity. Abusers were using “male privilege.” (To borrow lesbian critic Andrea Long Chu’s phrase, they were guilty of “[smuggling patriarchy] into lesbian utopia.”) Some argued that consensual S&M was part of the problem. Women who were women did not abuse their girlfriends; proper lesbians would never do such a thing.47 There was also the narrative that it was, simply, complicated. The burden of the pressure of straight society! Lesbians abuse each other!”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“Maybe he didn’t write her poems or serenade her with songs or come home with expensive gifts. But no other boy had gone the wrong way on the train for hours every day just because he liked sitting next to her while she spoke.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove