Pragathi Ram > Recent Status Updates

So Samantha Lang wants to take down the crime syndicates? I don’t see how likely that is to happen but it’s an improvement

Will is stupid of course Sam was gonna figure out you murdered her mother in broad daylight

“Sam. You are my heart. If you die, I die.” Ari is doing absolutely everything for Sam, even risking his family and Sam does not reciprocate it or value it enough

Poor Jane it must be so overwhelming not to remember anything but to have to move through life with the surety that you do

“That’s the way it happens on the subway—you lock eyes with someone, you imagine a life from one stop to the next, and you go back to your day as if the person you loved in between doesn’t exist anywhere but on that train.”

“The hottest girl August has ever seen just took on look at her and said, ‘Yikes.”

August’s character is very genuine, she’s not relatable in the sense that a lot of readers can understand her social anxiety but her thought process is explained in a really refreshing way

This book is so New York but idk if it’s entirely accurate cause I am a humble outsider

“I’d say we’re equally capable of destroying each other.”
Ari and Sam feel like they’re both drowning because everyone around them never offers them adequate support and then can’t tell anyone else how they’re feeling, they need someone to hold onto, but for that they need to actually talk about what’s going on in their heads

Ari’s literally drowning in her, and he loves it

THEY FINALLY MET
“Out of everyone in this room, it is his eyes alone that lock effortlessly onto hers, noticing her regardless of the effects of sand.”
“In the blink of an eye, they transmute gleaming knives from the wall and point them at each other’s throats.”

Ari is such a liar, he said he’s forgotten about her, he thinks about her every single night I know it

Actually guys why can’t you just let my babies be happy?? 😭😭
“It will be five years before they cross paths again. When they do, Sam will think back on this moment and wonder if there was anything she could have done to change the outcome, if things might have turned out differently if she had told him, if they could have found another way.”
I KNEW I would be devastated and read it anyway

This book is addictive
It reminds me of Babel a lot tho
Ari and Sam’s love story is actually gonna take me out cause here are two kids who find someone so different yet who understands in one another only to be torn apart by these syndicates who don’t care for them as individuals
Sam wanting to better when Ari already thinks she’s perfection is always gonna get me 😭

Okay I understand sometimes but why is Ma constantly lying to her husband? I know she doesn’t want him to worry but even lying about Dadu’s death?
Weird how Dadu learned to fight just like Boomba tried to learn how to fight when he moved into the city
Sometimes bittersweet about Dadu dying in the city he loved but missing out on experiencing the US

Ma and Dadu have been living thinking they are removed from the desperation of the other people in Kolkata but they’re now realizing they are mistaken, seeing their gradual change in character is so interesting

“It was unbearable to him that his granddaughter was hungry, and more, it was unbelievable. This was not the agreement he had had with his beloved city.”

“Ma’s troubled reality was beyond his wildest dreams.”

Poor Robi is an optimist no matter how much he doesn’t want to admit it, he keeps trying to find a job and money and make a life for his family to be proud of, but then it keeps falling through due to sometimes unforeseeable and unfortunate circumstances

This story talks a lot about the human perception of need, when you have your basic needs (food, shelter, water) you are able to plan and perceive what more you need like a place with consistency and with your loved ones, but when you lack even those basic needs even the most critical things such as documents to leave the country for a new life seem trivial in the face of your desperation

I like the premise and I like the way the story is framing all the perspectives, from the mother who knows leaving is the best option for her family, to a two year old unsure about the miseries of the world, to an old man nervous about leaving the only world he’s known

And eventually to a thief’s desperation

Watching Barbara make the wrong decisions with Frances and wreck the poor child’s life is so frustrating, sending her away to boarding school won’t solve her problems, it just solves your selfish need to be alone with your new husband

“There would be people who loved Joan for exactly who she was. Donna, Griff. Maybe her parents, hopefully Frances. But Barbara would never be one of them.”

“Wow. Imagine being so lucky to be the girl Joan Goodwin loves.” AWWW if anyone said that to me I think I’d never stop crying

Joan and Vanessa are finally (kinda) on the same page but it’s still very clear their relationship is frowned upon
Except for by Griff, he’s such an ally and then he went and died in the next chapter 😭

Sooo Joan just had her gay awakening although it seems like everyone including Vanessa and Griff had decided they knew Joan was gay but brought her to a strip club just in case

“Of course men were uninteresting to her. They were fundamentally uninteresting. We are interesting.” 🤣🤣🤣

“They are going to assign one woman at a time, because we’re novelties to them still. We’re not the same as a male astronaut until one of us or two of us or even three of us have gone up there and proven that we are.”
The idea that being a woman is already a strike against them to becoming astronauts so whatever happens between Joan and Vanessa will be even more drastically reprimanded

Joan and Vanessa are the definition of opposites attract, but I think it’s very valuable that they share the same aspirations. They’re both intent on making it to space the right way

“To do something so few people have ever done? No one will be able to take that away from us. If we do it, if we leave the planet, we will carry that with us into every room we enter for the rest of our lives.”

“What a time Joan lived in. To be able to tell her niece that she could be an astronaut.”
Crazy that it was so recent

“Not because she is afraid of what this mission entails—there is no logical reason to be afraid yet—but because she gets nervous every time she talks to Vanessa Ford.” Do I sense… gay?

“The forest had been growing inside him for a long time, he’d just refused to think about it.”
The forest growing inside of him is so eerie and cool and him basically commanding the monsters to do his biding is so interesting
It seems like he’s in charge of the monsters, that the monsters want Thomas because Andrew wants Thomas, they follow his desire but where Andrew never acts on it, they do

Yes, these boys do have an unhealthy obsession with each other. Not excusing that at all
But in some ways, the love they have for each other kind of heals their inner struggles

Andrew accepts Thomas even though he’s violent and disobedient, and Thomas helps Andrew recognize he is strong and powerful and helps him come out at ace

“Thomas liked girls. Specifically, Dove.” But how does he know? Have they talked about it? Andrew’s just convincing himself that this is true it seems

I like that the author makes it clear that Andrew’s obsession with Thomas is downright unhealthy, so I’m really curious how this is going to end because the two simply ending up together without growth doesn’t seem good for them

Poor Andrew, he’s haunted by these monsters that he can’t believe are real so he keeps believing that his mind is the issue and so he’s actually going insane, he’s convinced he’s lost his mind
I like the ace representation, it’s explained well if a little too in your face
“He clutched Thomas like he was the only thing real in a world of nightmares.”

So far haunting, suspenseful, gay.

You can tell there’s something inherently dysfunctional about all these characters but most certainly our narrator: Andrew.

“They fed off each other relentlessly, their fever dreams bleeding through their eyes like after they woke.” Their relationship already feels protective on both sides but still uncertain

So they were miserable for a while thinking the other one was perfectly happy, but then they hatched the same plan that they hatched at the very beginning of this story: get their parents hitched.
The Ashmonds really just serve as a common enemy for everyone to hate outright, I mean the man is against women being able to leave an abusive marriage, that’s just barbaric

Right now it appears like this is the most reasonable ending: Beth ending up with Montson, Gwen and Lord Havenfort sinking back into heartbreak and despair.
It’s not fun by any means but it’s realistic, how in this world would two noblewomen actually be able to be together? And it’s further limited by the concessions Beth had to make for the sake of her proposal. Still curious how this’ll turn around.

“The injustice of all of it. Of a title she can’t inherit, of a husband she needs for security, of a love that cannot exist and of a lover who will belong to to someone else in far too many ways.”

“In this room that isn’t hers, this house that isn’t hers, she sits with a life ahead that won’t be hers either, devoid of all happiness and desire.”

I’m so curious how this will all conclude

“She and Father can’t both end this season heartbroken. One of them deserves a happy ending.” Oof
Did not see Mrs Stelm and Mrs Glipe giving Gwen her gay awakening, but looks like her father supports so yay ally?
Gwen needs to stop confusing our poor Beth like this, do you want her for yourself or are you gonna give her up to Montson? What’s it gonna be?

Aw their parents are honestly so sweet
So their plan is to get their parents together is a bit selfish but I can’t blame them for it honestly, I’d do the same
“Come on, I don’t want to get married. You don’t want to get married. They’re so clearly in love with each other, it only makes sense.”

Can’t believe it took me so long to recognize it, part of this story also represents moving in adulthood from childhood and losing innocence to the pain we now perceive in the world.

“His childhood, his friendships, his carefree sense of security—all these things seemed to be slipping away.”
“He knew he couldn’t go back to the world of no feelings that he had lived in so long.”