Status Updates From Broken Homes & Gardens

I kinda love this

the end is so full of the sense of ruining/unruining, so many questions; what do we say to staunch the raw heart we've bloodied, when we ourselves are still wounded? How can we prevent a relationship's doom just when we've decided it's easier to go alone? of course it's easier. but it's better not to. and that's the question we answer, a little, but still the mystery remains like the echo the rain in the trees.

This is the part where my heart breaks for Joanna

this book gets into, not just the character of the women and men who people it, but also the city in which it is set. falling in love with characters is easy and this book is as much a love story about Portland and its citizens as it is Joanna and Malcolm. xo, Portland.

I am finding myself deeply relating to Joanna, though when I first met these characters I thought she was so unlike me, with her struggle to find a career that suits her, her early disheartenment with the adventure -- teaching English in the Czech Republic -- she thought would change her life. Her relationship with Nate is exactly the sort I got into in my 20s; surface-sweet and practical.