ash > Recent Status Updates

“It was then that they noticed a curious new anomaly: one of the synthetic rubber gaskets sealing the sections of the rocket together seemed to have been badly damaged—burned or partly vaporized—at some point during the course of its two-minute flight. Alarmed, the Thiokol inspectors filed a report… But it wasn’t a high-priority problem. Plans for the next flight proceeded regardless.”

‘One simply could not “Okay, Boomer” the entire world’s injustices. Someone was always eating. Someone else was always being eaten. Was it magic? Was it balance? Was it a simple exchange of energies, neither lost nor destroyed?’

This book is very… why not cannibalism?

“These did not seem like real events. They seemed like insurmountable speed bumps on a tar pit of time. To get to the finish I would have to do all these things, and I could not do all these things because I could not even stand up.”

Yeah. Perfect representation of so-called ‘high functioning depression.’

I knew I didn’t like that guy. Ew.

“Communist and capitalist nations were the same exploitative hellholes; there was no difference.”

Joy I felt reading this after my boss said the four hours of overtime I put in this week was ‘free’ and I need to work more OT if I wanna get paid for it.

RF Kuang puts out books every single time I have a reading slump, so please let her writing fix me

“Telling me is the opposite of a confession. It’s an exoneration, an acquittal. You tell me how fucked up you are, and I’ll praise you for it.”

ask me how well this is going and I’ll tell you not to read it in public because holy fuck this is hot.

Oh this is fucking hot…

“You can’t have—no one could survive—”

“Believe me, I didn’t want to.” He gave me a wry look. “I’d beg you to kill me, if I thought it would take.”

“…clearly he’d been violent at least once in his life, but just because somebody shoots someone else in anger doesn’t mean they’re likely to keep corpses in a shed.”

Uh.. Sonia… ma’am, you fuckin sure about that lmao

“How many grieving mothers did the war create? They don’t all rise up and take revenge. What makes your grief so special? What difference does it make?”

“Achilles. So many bargains had been made, so much persuasion deployed across the islands of Greece to bring this mighty force of men together. But of all the great soldiers famed for their skill and strength in battle, no stories paralleled those of Achilles.”

“…perhaps there was no catastrophe to come. And then I realized… We had known it all for years, from the moment of my mother’s dream. A fire, coming to sweep the city. TROY WOULD FALL. And for all that everyone might disbelieve me if I said it aloud, somewhere in their bones, I knew they knew it too.”

“…hear the swelling chorus of frogs and katydids, punctuated by the distant call of a barred owl. The irony was that I knew those sounds too. Once upon a time I had known them as well as I knew my own name. Hearing them now…felt like coming back to a childhood home gone unfamiliar and strange.”

This struck me. It’s probably nothing to most, but to me, who has not been ‘home’ in 10 years, I can relate.

“You love fully and completely, only to have it returned in less than half.”

“God knows hatred is more resilient than wildlife.”

I’m in a reading slump and praying that a T. kingfisher book can fix this 😩

I was impatient, they’re fucking now lmao. Please disregard my previous update.

This book (according to kindle) is 1292 pages.

I am 108 pages into it, and while I wouldn’t say it’s bad… I’m also just bored? How is this 100 pages already and nothing has happened?

EXQUISITE TORMENT IS CORRECT.

“Kiss me and kiss me again; our tomorrows are so few.”

I literally dropped everything to read this.

Admittedly the only books I’ve read by Veronica Roth is the Divergent series, so this is taken me completely by surprise.

if I didn’t know any better, I’d say it’s different people. Holy shit this is good.

“Corporate jobs do have a tendency to suck the life from people.”

Fucking tell me about it. Also this feels like a Studio Ghibli movie, as a book.

“…the mob doesn’t need to stalk little old ladies in Southern towns. We have the United Daughters of the Confederacy for that.”

I am CACKLING.

“God, there’s just so much Texas. I could handle all the other states, but Texas lengthwise really breaks you. I attempted to express this to my mother, which mostly involved wild arm gestures and the words ‘El Paso’ uttered at intervals.”

This paragraph has me fucking cackling. That’s exactly how it feels to drive through Texas.

“I am tired of trying to hold things together that cannot be held… Trying to control what cannot be controlled. I am tired of denying myself what I want for fear of breaking things I cannot fix. They will break no matter what we do.”

When the author said slow burn, she meant it because holy shit I am halfway through and they haven’t even kissed yet. 0 complaints here.

I am enjoying this book so far! I like that the protagonists are not fucking 20 years old. I love a 30-something protagonist who complains about their back hurting from doing nothing but driving, because same man. Fucking Same.
I’ve never read a book by this author, and I don’t know what it is about her writing, but it reminds me of Rebecca Yarros’s contemporary works. No complaints here!