Terry Taft > Recent Status Updates

This book is SO AWESOME I LOVE READING!!!

Taking a much needed break from this year’s Booker list which has been…. Suffocating.

Man we have left all punctuation at the door in a BIG way, Cline don’t even wanna press TAB!

“But I guess a man can’t in any way miss another man in this country. Not without people questioning why. Imagine that, eeh? When a man go missing in Jamaica the only safe thing for another man to do is let him go”

Man, the characters are already dripping off these pages. Going to try to take this one slow and deliberately.

This is such a needed book on this long list it’s putting my feet back on the ground

White knuckling this book trying to understand it as I read it

The lack of quotation marks is really hindering immersion in this one. Really really over this trend.

This book might be paced absolutely perfectly

Could I be harsh… I think Douglas Stuart THINKS he’s writing like this.

Waiting for all the Booker prize books to get to me….

She’s trying to hurt me yall. She’s really trying to hurt me.

MB this is one of the greatest books ever written. Just don’t think I was prepped for Kafka levels of depressing but maybe I could’ve gathered that from the title.

Praying she lands this bc right now it’s just feelin risky

I can’t imagine speaking ill of Steinbeck but I am severely disinterested w this one

Dude idk it’s been a dense couple of books I need a Hail Mary 😭 NOBODY LOOK OVER HERE

Are we all reading the same book??????

Could I be so bold to say that there is nothing new or remotely interesting here? I need someone who cares for me to sit down and talk me through this, I know I’m wrong!!!!!!

There’s something about Stuart that just doesn’t work for me. And it’s clearly JUST me. His books feel like they sit right at surface level with brief dips down into absurd sexual behavior or sudden and wild violence that fly right back up to the surface level. There’s something so NOT vulnerable about this written vulnerability, I cannot put a finger on it.

Treading water between nuanced characters and a stuffy (and purposeful) self-Insert I’m really not sure is working for me. Only 400 more pages, I’m sure they’ll be normal!

The only correct place to start with Chu is reading “on liking women” and I strongly encourage you to find it online and read it immediately. After my 3rd read, I feel that I still have yet to find another piece of writing which so aptly dissects the TERF and the desire to express gender. It precedes her book females which feels like a failed attempt to expound upon what was right in “on liking women.”

I’ve spent some time recently reading New York magazine. I’m gay, so I start with the criticism section. I must say, people can be so dull, even in the face of writing for such a prestigious magazine. That is never a crime I’d accuse Chu of. In fact, she might be one of the most interesting living writers.

The international booker short list this year is so damn good every one a hit

Lena Dunham writers the most absurdly consumable content. Regardless of the sorta strange (often cringe) voice she has, it is abundantly clear that she’s a genius.

Bored 100 pages only to read 20 of the most profound pages of the entire year.
“Where does this personal obsession with the past come from? Why does it pull me in, like a well I have leaned over? Why does it seduce me with faces that I know no longer exist? What is left there, that I don’t manage to take? Could I beg for just one trip back, even though I do not have Orpheus’s talent, just his desire?

This is making me feel dumb as rocks

Theres something about this that reminds me a lot of open water and all the reasons that didn’t work for me. Every touch is lighting, crisp english is a frozen pond, everyone is shaking fresh rain water off their new wings. When every moment of a book is poetic, it’s really hard for me to stay interested in a plot. Idk.

God this is dull

I’m off a gummy feeling like the wax child

“These are strange times my dear, they smell your breath to see if you've spoken of love.”