river taylor > Recent Status Updates

The novel just shifted from 3rd person to 1st; I’m suddenly so confused on who’s narrating now

Rostov family has been introduced finally. The Countess seems very much to be a controlling but loving matriarch. Natasha (who is 12 right now) is in love with Boris, and her older brother Nikolay and her cousin Sonya seem to be falling in love with one another as well.
Loved that Natasha watched Sonya’s love confession and felt inspired to call Boris to her

Paul’s quote about Let It Be being much happier to record than originally believed kinda made me sad

Finished section 1; Very interested in the dynamic between Willem and Jude, especially after the backstory involving Hemming. Would love to learn more about JB besides his little artsy career. And I’d love to read more about Malcolm, I feel like I’ve learned more about how he feels than seeing him actually get to do anything

I’m finding myself to be really annoyed with JB (probably because I find the whole Starving Artist archetype to be incredibly irritating and poorly carried out in a lot of media), but the description of JB knowing why Jude would hate the portrait he’s making was so lovely to read. I feel like there’s so much intimacy in knowing someone so deeply that you know exactly what it is that they’re insecure about

Very much easier to read than I had originally assumed it would be. Yanagihara has a very interesting style in which they feel the need to explain the context in everything with a drawn out backstory, which is probably why this book is 800+ pages

That initial conversation that David and Giovanni had about time and “well Americans are a different species” was just so intimate, I fear that I too would have fallen in love with Giovanni

The description of the memory he has about his night with Joey nearly brought me to tears. Also his conversation he has with his father where the father said he wants to be more of a friend than a father

Cersei saying she’ll wear Robert’s slap like a badge of honor and Robert saying “stfu or I’ll honor you again,” I can’t help but be gagged. Also, just read the trial by combat chapter and I always forget Bronn exists. Ew

Dany’s just arrived in Vaes Dothrak, and I would love to learn more about the Dothraki culture

Chose to restart. Very interesting prologue. The three colors coming together was devastating

Finished Chapter 2/12 - about discovering self identity as a form of healing. This book is much too autobiographical. Cameron needs to be better about just simply giving advice. I don’t care how harsh it sounds but I don’t care about her dead grandmother’s diaries. Just get to the point

The description of the kinds of books the Tralfamadorians read (being entirely pleasurable and having no deeper meaning) is too reminiscent of modern day attention spans affected by social media and the rise of AI. Shocking this book was written like 55 years ago (I think)

Finally reaching towards the end of the book. Kinda sad it’s ending soon. Loved the chapters “I Got Gurued” and “Enough” - they both have a lot of personal takes on self transformation and self acceptance

Signing Allen Klein as manager and eventual lawsuit against him. Paul’s announcement of Beatles’ split with solo album. Chapter about that solo album.

“When I know the truth, I must go to Robert. And pray that he is the man I think he is, and not the man I fear he has become”