Jules > Recent Status Updates

“The day was beautiful and I thought of you. This is what she will write in her letter. Whenever I see something beautiful, I wish you were there to see it. I would give you my eyes. I will learn to describe things instead.”

230 pages to say I Love You!!!!

“While the nymph is growing into its new skin—the very thing that will protect it and hold its shape—it is at its most vulnerable.
The act of becoming demands such softness.”

“The condition that pains Max is ongoing. There is no extraction, no remedy, that will return him to his former self.”

"That, in only seven days, Dolores will continue moving forward, and Leo will be just over her shoulder."

“Andiamo, dude. It’s a new fucking day.”

“What sense is there in dying for love? Love is a refuge from time and therefore from death.”

• Leo’s Father: Death by suicide, hanged himself in a clinic upstate—in the country
• Odysseus obsession in Part 1 makes sense by this point

“Who gets tired of looking at beautiful things?”

“Violetta is no longer a woman enfeebled by sleep. At some point, not long after her husband's death, she woke up. She was invigorated by an inner strength that, she told her doctors and chil-dren, was her motherly capacity, and indeed she became, much to Leo's indignation, something like a real parent.”

“Her father took up so much space—takes up so much space-that there is little room left for Leo and Max and Violetta, the lives they keep tending in corners and niches.”

As a member of the Dead Dad Club, this hits HARD

“Death is positional, like the gnomon of a sundial, which forces time to circle around it.”

90 pages to find out Leo’s dad dies, followed by a paragraph about time with imagery of trees and birds

“Not all disappearances are so quick. So absolute. The tree, for instance, is still there.”

Leo, now 18

“The hotel was like a castle in a picture book, capable of producing magic from each teeming corner. It had enchanted her. Now, the mess just makes her tired, and a little sad. She cannot help but notice the things that she has been trained, year after year, to erase.”

Part 1 Thoughts:
• What’s with the Odysseus obsession? I’m sure there’s a reasoning behind it being mentioned so much but it’s going over my head
• Leo = Daddy’s Girl
• The parents seem almost mentally absent and… not great
• So much happened but also not much happened?
• Hoping Part 2 picks up more because lowkey kinda slogged thru Part 1
• Writing seems poetically wordy? (TBD if good thing)

“A book is like a woman—it does no good to rust her.”

“Her mind is like a tide pool, with many things dwelling inside.”

Obsessed with this dynamic:

They (Leo & Max) have no sense of what is real and what is play, only that the Absent-Minded Professor is a kind of god, all-knowing, and that with the right password, they will be privy to his secrets, which are the secrets of the world.

"I would very much appreciate it if I had two assistants to quiz me from time to time, so that these things don't just fall out of my brain."
Leo & Max are happy to oblige. They grill him on rivers & lakes. They ask him to quote Romeo & Juliet. They want to know where Atlantis is, what feathers are made of, whether hair grows right out of their scalps or from their tangled ends, & he tells them.

“His name carries the proud hopes of their family—Maximino, meaning "greatest," a name lifted all the way up from Latin. Leo has no particular talents. Her name is lifted from a long-dead aunt.”

(And a Nonna so hawt in her youth that her stunning beauty tempts priests 🙌🏽)

I’m only 3 pages into this book and I already want to visit this hotel SO BAD

Short story notes: where does she get the key? Was Kevin that desperate for female attention? I love that Kevin is so incompetent that the video files are deleted from his computer. I love that he is just the most incompetent character who’s at the wrong place at the wrong time (for him. The right time for Adriana and Julian)

THAT ENDING!!

I wish we got a couple chapters from Erin/ericas POV to see how she broke into the unoccupied house, why she chose Camila, why she tried to make Julian seem like the bad guy

BUT there is a bonus short story called “Things like this don’t happen here” that surround HOA manager, Kevin and how he became involved

Side note: Will we get a chapter or two from the POV of Erica? I’d love to know how she got into the unoccupied house to befriend Camilla

“There is nothing for her to hold on to. There is no one coming to save her.” CHILLS TK THE MAX

“As awful as this woman has been to my family and me, it is simply incredible to see where her delusions have landed her.” CHILLS

"Because. You're innocent, Julian. There's
a way out of this. I'm sure of it." He nods and looks away.

Which is probably a good thing. Since I'm
lying straight to his face.

ADRIANA WHICH OART ARE YOU LYING ABOUT? OR ARE YOU LYING ABOUT BITH HIS INNOCENCE AND THAT THERES A WAY OUT IF JT

WHAT HAPPENED, JULIAN? AND WHY ARE YOU COVERED IN BLOOD

Erica’s creepy “found you” spray painted on Adriana’s patio. Bc that’s not freaky enough