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Rachel Townzen

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Rachel Townzen is currently reading

Lilith

by Nikki Marmery (Goodreads Author)

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Apr 30, 2026 06:47AM

Rachel Townzen is currently reading

Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel

by Anatoly Kuznetsov

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Apr 03, 2026 05:09PM

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Looking for Jane

by Heather Marshall (Goodreads Author)

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Feb 02, 2026 01:18PM

“Grief is a ghost that visits without warning. It comes in the night and rips you from your sleep. It fills your chest with shards of glass. It interrupts you mid-laugh when you’re at a party, chastising you that, just for a moment, you’ve forgotten. It haunts you until it becomes a part of you, shadowing you breath for breath.”
― Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted

68 likes

“It's a funny thing, coming home. Everything smells the same, looks the same, feels the same, but you are different; the contrast between who you were when you left and who you are now is heightened against the backdrops of old haunts. (42)”
― Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted

tags: coming-back-home, sickness

10 likes

“The painful things—Werenro’s story, Re-nefer’s choice, even my own loneliness—seemed like the knots on a beautiful necklace, necessary for keeping the beads in place.”
― Anita Diamant, The Red Tent

4 likes

“With each passing day, I allowed myself to become a little more intoxicated by limitless possibilities which seemed sometimes to roll in with the fog, murmur suggestions that would have made me run yelling from them had I been anywhere [other than San Francisco], then leave me to cope with that special brand of terror bestowed by sweet and sour tastes of freedom.”
― Aberjhani, Greeting Flannery O'Connor at the Back Door of My Mind

tags: bay-area, california, coming-of-age, freedom, happiness, oregon, san-francisco, traveling-in-america, west-coast-wildfires, youth

8 likes

“There is no restitution for people like us, no return to days when our bodies were unscathed, our innocence intact. Recovery isn’t a gentle self-care spree that restores you to a pre-illness state. Though the word may suggest otherwise, recovery is not about salvaging the old at all. It’s about accepting that you must forsake a familiar self forever, in favor of one that is being newly born. It is an act of brute, terrifying discovery.”
― Suleika Jaouad, Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted

27 likes

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