Status Updates From The Way We Swing Back

This book is so sweet and sad I might not survive it 😭😭😭

I was like "wow, what an amazing, satisfying, cathartic ending" and then the two-months-later-segment happened 😩

Brb, just gonna dm the author that it is illegal to leave me with this cliffhanger 🫡

FUCK YEAHHHHH 🖕😮‍💨🖕

Get his ass 😼

"I cracked a dozen eggs into a mixing bowl and whisked, one hand holding the bowl, the other doing the work. She'd taught me that. She'd taught me everything, really. Except how to live without her.

I didn't think about her every day anymore. That used to make me feel guilty. But today, on Mother's Day, she was everywhere."

—Easton breaks my heart every two pages on average 🫡

This book is great at exploring how being cared for by a family who is safe and that you weren't born into can feel uncanny when "home" has always been a hostile place.

Easton wants a family, wants love, wants to feel safe, but he can't help but anxiously wait for the other shoe to drop, or, in this case, to be kicked out or met with violence. It's like a stomach rejecting food after starving for too long.

"(...) I heard a car pull into the driveway. Weird. The parents weren't expected home until after dinner, and we hadn't ordered pizza yet.

A fist pounded on the door, (...)"

—I'm getting a REALLY bad feeling... Easton, get behind me!! 😩

I stared at the pasta in front of me. Right behind it, Zach's empty seat stared at me, accusing me of doing this on purpose. I wasn't hungry anymore. I let myself out without a goodbye and walked home to the one thing waiting under my bed that had never made me feel like I was taking someone's place.

—Things were ok for maybe 2 seconds. Easton has such a complex dynamic with the Quinn family

"Hand-me-downs were better than nothing."

—Such a simple sentence, yet it has so many meanings in the context of who Easton is.

" (...) as I unfolded the paper and started to read, my stomach churning from the first sentence, sweat dripping onto the page.

Dear Easton,

(...) My lawyer says I'll be out before you graduate.

Then you can come home and live with me again.

Right where you belong. We'll get back to how things used to be.

—Oh, hell no, leave that man to ROT.

This is the second time this month we follow the POV of a queer man drowning his feelings in alcohol. Spotify, play Drinking Age by Cameron Winters again!!

How do I ALWAYS forget to put the buddyread link in the first update 😩


Anyways, anyone is welcome to join. Now or in the future: https://app.thestorygraph.com/buddy_r...

Just found a super extensive list of all the characters and important info on them in my notes on the previous installment. Never been as grateful to past me for being insane when it comes to note taking 😌👌

Gonna go through my old notes, annotations and review of The Way We Swing to prepare for reading this next instalment. Fingers crossed I was detailed enough to go into this without re-reading the first one 🤞My schedule is already TIGHT as it is lol