Abigail > Recent Status Updates

He saw that no one felt for him, because no one even wished to grasp his position.

I thought of it as “owning” my narrative. But as soon as I began “owning” it publicly, my identity became flattened into this fixed thing. Being a victim was all anyone associated with me; I became a waste bin of unsolicited sympathy.

“I get it,” she said. “You’re just like all the others. Oh God! Why do people always live as if life can be repeated?”

I was twenty-two years old, said Richie, getting agitated. How old are you, Tom, twenty-seven, twenty-eight? What were you like when you were
twenty-two? Do you think you would have been enthusiastic about babysitting your sister’s kid very much? Were you filled with a sense of
community and family duty or were you just doing the best you could and
trying to make yourself as happy as possible?

He knew it was the one thing to be thankful for now that Rose wasn’t around to see the circus, to see what had become of the family she had given up her own life to try and hold together. It would put her in the grave all over again. He needed a drink.

Tell me what it is to be the thing rooted in shadow.
To be the thing not touched by light (no, that’s not it)—
to not even need the light? I envy; I envy that.

Desire is a tricky thing, the boiling of the body’s wants,
more praise, more hands holding the knives away.

I’ve been the one who has craved and craved until I could not see
beyond my own greed. There’s a whole nation of us.

reading (listening) this just to feel something.

"Now, I’m doing this humiliating thing. Touching the picture of his face, like I can somehow feel the essence of him that day. It will bring him closer to me than he’s been for the past two years."

the levels of denial these characters go through are insane ... like is that not an insane thought to have about your bestie lmao

But mostly we’re forgetting we’re dead stars too, my mouth is full
of dust and I wish to reclaim the rising—
to lean in the spotlight of streetlight with you, toward
what’s larger within us, toward how we were born.
Look, we are not unspectacular things.
We’ve come this far, survived this much. What
would happen if we decided to survive more? To love harder?

“(…) you didn’t ask if progress is good, and a person is not beautiful because they’re good, they’re beautiful because they’re alive, like a child. Alive and curious and restless. Never mind good. They’re beautiful because there’s a light in their eyes. Sometimes destructive, sometimes hurtful, sometimes selfish, but beautiful because alive. And progress is like that, by its nature alive.”

And to think that I loved this man passionately, to think that I gave him thirty years of my life, to think that twelve times over I carried his child. The addition of a rival to my life was not enough for him. In loving someone else, he burned his past, both morally and materially. He dared to commit such an act of disavowal.

acho que estou a ler rupi kaur sem querer

Descobriam a vida
juntos dia-a-dia.

Ele lia-lhe as páginas ímpares.
Ela lia-lhe as páginas pares.

Ainda havia leitura para muito tempo.

“She was just killing time, she supposed. Killing time instead of killing herself. She shook the thought away immediately.”

this made me laugh out loud … i’m a terrible person lmao

Is okay, he murmured, though of course it was not, would never be again. Is okay.

He ran his palms over her head, from her crown to her neck, like a benediction, like a blessing. Then, clutching either side of her face, he pressed his forehead to hers, holding his face an inch from hers. (...)

What do I do? she whimpered.

If you want to fight, he whispered. We fight.

In the early morning light, in her empty living room, Bonnie looked down at her destroyed shoes and feet. For the first time since Nicky died, she let herself cry.

A sister is not a friend. (...) No. True sisterhood, the kind where you grew fingernails in the same womb, were pushed screaming through identical birth canals, is not the same as friendship. You don’t choose each other, and there’s no furtive period of getting to know the other. You’re part of each other, right from the start.

This is the first page ?!!?

“No single individual did more to shape the character of medical advertising than the multi-talented Dr. Arthur Sackler.” It was Arthur, the citation continued, who brought “the full power of advertising and promotion to pharmaceutical marketing.”

three things: 1) this book is boring 2) men suck and should be in jail 3) women are always the victim

I thought for a minute of the world outside my house, and then I didn't have any more thoughts except the thought that I had to hurry up and sleep

Sutério passava rigorosamente toda semana e levava o que podia. Mas não deixava levar o melhor, como meu pai fazia por gratidão. Separava os legumes maiores para a casa, para meus pais. (...) Mas se desse para dar aos animais, eu dava, só para não deixar que ele levasse meu suor, minhas dores nas costas, meus calos nas mãos e minhas feridas nos pés, como se fosse algo seu.

Era a língua que a havia retirado de certa forma do
mutismo que se impôs com o medo da rejeição e da
zombaria das outras crianças. E que por inúmeras vezes a
havia libertado da prisão que pode ser o silêncio

"Mas havia os fazendeiros e sitiantes que cresceram em número e que exerciam com fascínio e orgulho seus papéis de dominadores, descendentes longínquos dos colonizadores; ou um subalterno que havia conquistado a sorte no garimpo e passava a exercer o poder sobre outros, que, sem alternativa, se submetiam ao seu domínio."

até agora o meu fav do booker prize e só vou a 19%

Foi assim que me tornei parte de Belonísia, da mesma
forma que ela se tornou parte de mim. Foi assim que
crescemos, aprendemos a roçar, observamos as rezas de
nossos pais, cuidamos dos irmãos mais novos. Foi assim que
vimos os anos passarem e nos sentimos quase siamesas ao
dividir o mesmo órgão para produzir os sons que
manifestavam o que precisávamos ser.

shorlisted for the international booker prize 2024

have to say i'm a bit bored. it would be interesting if the book explored a topic that it was introduced now but i dont think that's happening unfortunatelly.

The hooks buried in her sides, the tug-of-war all afternoon till she can’t fight any more. The gunshots. Pulled from the river to be thrown back in later. Dead.

“you’re not perfect. I said. But that’s not the same as being broken.”

shortlisted for the international booker prize 2024

"True, the Camp eye has the power to transform experience. But not everything can be seen as Camp. It’s not all in the eye of the beholder."

That’s all there is to the self, or the so-called “self”: traces
of the people we rub up against.

the international booker prize 2024 - longlist

i’m not dead just went through a huge reading slump and also i started writing !!

When I walked into my friend’s hospital room, her eyes were a piercing, pale blue and the only part of her body that could move. I was scared. So was she. The blue was beating.

someone just hung themselves so that's fun ...

--

"What mistakes did we make? We’re old, we’re old now. If I sat down and wrote down all our mistakes, would that be enough? Answer me! What everlasting sins did we commit? Didn’t we win this country? Didn’t we sacrifice ourselves for the Revolution?"