Alyssa > Recent Status Updates

“All memories are bitter, and I prefer to ignore them. Something happened a year ago that altered my whole life, and I want to forget every phase in my existence up to that time. Those days are finished. They are blotted out. I must begin living all over again.”

I sit at the edge of the pond as I begin this and am already floored by where he wanders in only the first few paragraphs. “Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?”

"Did you not call this a glorious expedition? And wherefore was it glorious? Not because the way waws smooth and placid as a southern sea but because it was full of dangers and terror; because, at every new incident, your fortitude was to be called forth and your courage exhibited; because danger and death surrounded, and these dangers you were to brave and overcome."

"I, the only unquiet thing that wandered restless in a scene so beautiful and heavenly ... was tempted to plunge into the silent lake, that the waters might close over me and my calamities for ever."

"Before, I looked upon the accounts of vice and injustice, that I read in books ... as tales of ancient days ... but now misery has come home, and men appear to me as monsters thirsting for each other's blood."

Things are certainly picking up fast!

"But better off sad than dead." "What a luxury trash would be." "Obsession was hardwired into his brain." "He reminded himself that self-control was an essential skill, and he should be grateful his grandmother provided daily opportunities to practice it." "The world still thought Coriolanus rich, but his only real currency was charm." Snow falls on top

I wasn't sure at first if we were supposed to be 'shipping' Vasya and Morozko; the angst is real!

Did not know anything about this book before picking it up during a plane ride, but perhaps the opening Sylvia Plath quote should have been a clue. I was NOT ready to ball my eyes out at some of the events that happen to Nora in the beginning and yet, there I was... thank God it was a night-flight and I could hide my tears haha!