Lillian > Recent Status Updates

friends of goodreads- is this one worth reading??? im 1/5 thru and find it significantly less entertaining than THG and find the writing worse in quality. asking bc idk if i should spend the time on it

Rereading for the first time since I was 11!

YOOO ONIONS AND LAVENDER CRAZY ITS LIKE AN EGO FACADE OF STINKY! I audibly gasped at the last sentence.

Leman Ypi as lowkey nonbinary and has an ALBANIAN democtatic socialist boyfriend in the 1930s… ugh my dream 3

‘THE DOGS’ CRAZIEST MF CHAPTER WHAT DO YOU MEAAAAAAAN THATS JUST IN THE BAG AND THATS WHERE THEY MEET CUTE WHATTTTTT

josh can attest i audibly gasped twice and that never happens

broooooo is a nazi and pedophile capitalist i cant

I understand Selma and wish she weren't coerced to honor her family.

Ch 4: Turns out the original red pill was the post-wwi economy 3

ch 3 im soooooo selma

I got rejected from my first law school while listening to the audiobook so

Chapter 2 really took me by surprise. The Albanian narrator, Ypi's grandma, is lowkey giving some major non-binary thoughts, which is interesting given Albanians' strict ideas on gender. I had no idea that Pelasgians are mixed with Albanians, or that Thessaloniki has Alb, Greek, Turkish, and Jewish influence! The leech arc, I feel, is Ypi's humor coming into play. I also feel that Selma is the moral lamp post!

With a prologue that nice, I read it twice. Ypi begins her second acclaimed book to a raw, investigative start. I love the repetition of "you're not from here" from Tironasit because I got the same sentiment in Tirana and that sentence is even more ironic because Ypi is born and raised Albanian. There's an intense tension between past and present regime behavior that Ypi explores, which has drawn my attention.

Ch. 22- The Point is To Change It: Albanian dads love hitting their daughters with “what do you know about ____?”

Guys Im shocked tho- “I travelled to Italy on a boat that sailed over thousands of drowned bodies, bodies that once carried souls more hopeful than mine, but who met fates less fortunate. I never returned.” What a sharp way to end a narrative about Albania!

Ch. 21- 1997: you think the dictatorship was bad then u get the government regime change and thats bad and then u get the pyramid schemes and anarchy of 1997 and youre like woah! the worst of times.

Ch. 20- Like The Rest of Europe: ironic how a chapter with this title ends in the Albanian civil war.

Ch. 19- Dont Cry: Appreciate the nuance here within the dad being against the former communist dictator regime but having cried when the World Bank told him to fire the Roma port employees for “economic efficiency.”

Ch. 17- the Crocodile: WESTERN MAN OVERWHELMED BY ALBANIAN CULTURE WHAT DOESNT KILL U MAKES U STRONGER MY GUY what he experienced (hated) in his 40s was me when i was 11 visiting for the first time