414 books
—
234 voters
Juniper feels like a soldier with a loaded rifle, finally shown something she can shoot. Like a girl with a lit match, finally shown something she can burn.
“Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it's all a male fantasy: that you're strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.”
― The Robber Bride
― The Robber Bride
“And no one knew better than I did what it meant to make your own head masculine so that it would be accepted by the culture of men; I had done it, I was doing it.”
― Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay
― Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay
“Oh, how unbearable is a happy person sometimes!”
― White Nights
― White Nights
“Men cannot grieve as dogs do. But they grieve for many years.”
― Assassin's Apprentice
― Assassin's Apprentice
“Lila was able to speak through writing; unlike me when I wrote, unlike Sarratore in his articles and poems, unlike even many writers I had read and was reading, she expressed herself in sentences that were well constructed, and without error, even though she had stopped going to school, but–further–she left no trace of effort, you weren't aware of the artifice of the written word. I read and I saw her, I heard her. The voice set in the writing overwhelmed me, enthralled me even more than when we talked face to face; it was completely cleansed of the dross of speech, of the confusion of the oral; it had the vivid orderliness that I imagined would belong to conversation if one were so fortunate as to be born from the head of Zeus and not from the Grecos, the Cerullos.”
― My Brilliant Friend
― My Brilliant Friend
Lauren’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Lauren’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Lauren
Lists liked by Lauren











































