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Esther and Ysabel Hawthorn had voices that ran together like raindrops on a windowpane.

*Sigh* I had to start over and read the first few pages to a friend before bedtime, the rhythm of the words dip and sway like a lullaby.

Their roots knobble the water's surface from beneath, twist together into a braided sort of bridge; their branches above tangle and pleach into a vast, vaulting canopy.

Holy shit! I carelessly grabbed this as I ran to catch my train, completely unprepared for such poetry! The twinned consonants, the rhythmic rise and fall of words cradling me in their current. I want to read aloud to the man across from me: listen!

"Mission accomplished!"

OMG how are they both this cute and goofy together? This is a the fluffiest fluff to ever- how are you so adorable?

Will you help me keep you?

🥺🥺🥺
OMG I just melted.

"Did you just call me JJ?"

*Snort*
I'll never be able to hear that nickname without thinking of Yuri! On Ice: "It's JJ Style!!!" *Pose*

Huh. Was not expecting for this book to start out in Munds Park off the I-17. Drinking Four Peaks beer.

Six years earlier, on a Tuesday in September, I woke up in my basement apartment in Kingston, Ontario, and realized I had slept in- Not so flagrantly as to make it impossible to make it to my first college class...

Eyes skimming along the words, I wondered, How do people recall their life with such clarity? I couldn't tell you if I slept in on a given day-- Something traumatic is about to happen isn't it? Oh. Right.

And so we left; have been leaving ever since.

Your papers, he said.
My father pulled out his paperwork. Without reading it, the soldier tore it in half and threw it on the floor.
Your papers, he repeated.

[The Gulf War] transformed from a thing no one talked about to a normal mechanic of everyday life. ... The endless footage on CNN that at first provoked such shock- these shadowed Baghdad cityscapes detonating sporadically in balls of pale white light- soon caused no reaction at all. It was just what happened to certain places, to certain people: they became balls of pale white light. What mattered was, it wasn't us.

[My daughter] wants to double-check the spelling of "welcome." I shut my computer, quickly. In various browser tabs, there is footage of a girl not much older than my daughter, pulled out of the rubble after an Israeli airstrike. In another is a recording of a girl begging for help, shortly before her execution ... I tell my daughter she spelled the word correctly. She returns to her park, light as air.

I wouldn’t bother to leave a mound or sign indicating that the remains of a human being lay there. I would remember, and there was no one else to tell.

Perhaps, somewhere, humanity is flourishing under the stars, unaware that a daughter of its blood is ending her days in silence.

There will always be something appealing about survival stories. From childhood books like Hatchet, to prehistoric fiction like Clan of the Cave Bear, to sci-fi colonies and apocalyptic survivors, I'll never tire of people in difficult situations finding ways to live.

I'm also reminded of Primitive Technology on YouTube. Judging by the channel's popularity, clearly I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Is there a satisfaction in the effort of remembering that provides its own nourishment, and is what one recollects less important than the act of remembering?

I lived in a perpetual present and I was gradually forgetting my story.

Because I'm sodding sick of losing things, and I'm not losing you if I can help it.

"But he didn't know the name at all; he looked quite blank."

Oh, I'm sure. Damned bastard, I'm already looking forward to them unravelling this one.

"Give him writing from a lot of suspects in a case, and some from unrelated people too," he said promptly. "Get him to say who he thought was guilty."

*Side eye* "Unrelated," you say?
Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?

"And he can't be allowed to go around making wild what-do-you-call-ems."
"Statements of fact?"

According to Aaron's hasty reading, such luminaries as Disraeli, Sir Walter Scott, and Robert Browning had believed in the power of graphology, but they were a pack of writers and not to be relied on for common sense.

"I suppose it runs in the family by why women have to gabble on endlessly, never a pause for breath, talk talk talk and gossip gossip gossip. A man can't hear himself think. And I'll tell you what else—"

Hehehe. :P

Always appreciate good opening lines. :)

"Detective Sergeant Aaron Fowler massaged the base of his skull. It didn't relieve the pain in his neck, because that was sitting opposite him in an expensive suit."

Book not even started, but the copyright endpaper already made my day. I also hate that this is the current dystopian reality we live in.

"Any use of this publication to "train" generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. [...] The author would like AI companies to fuck off."

Hear hear!

“You make me feel like I’m kissing the tides.” “Benigno,” he whispered back. “You make me feel like I am holding the moon.”

"Was it... perhaps... a THREE-pie predicament?"

Bwahahahaha! I am in love with the Pie-Scale of Crisis. Three cheers for pie!

Talking over problems with parents?
*recoils*
What in the white middle-class hell is this!?

"What if he catches ME?" Percy asks.
She considers that for a moment, then says, "We won't get caught. Now step lively."

*slams books shut* Goddamn it Felicity. Trying to stowaway on a ship. With slaves on it. With your Black friend. You absolute twat. Of all the callous, cavalier, White Woman moves to- *sputters*
Someone really needs to invent a way for you to reach inside a book and smack the characters.

"Turns out, panic I'd rather exhausting, and I fell asleep without meaning to, my head tipped back against the railing of the boat, before anyone has come out."

I'm having plenty of fun on the trio's adventures and escapades, but some of the word choices, like the grammar here, throws me off. I fall asleep before anyone "has come" out? "Comes out."

"It's hard to be sympathetic when I've told him ever since he adopted it that unless he gives me a better explanation, his diet is absurd."

*rereads sentence* See... that isn't a reason. That's an example. You're describing HOW you are being unsympathetic, not why.