Rachel > Recent Status Updates

"Oh? I can have the world?"
"Mine," he says, "yeah. You can have mine."

Y'ALL DID ME DIRTY WITH YOUR NEGATIVE REVIEWS OF THIS ONE BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN SCREAMING. CRYING, THROWING UP AS I ALWAYS DO WITH AN EMILY HENRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"Number One. Imagine a sphere, in which the exterior surface is red and the interior surface is white. Maintaining the continuity of the sphere, mentally distort the sphere so that the external sirface is on the inside, and the internal on the outside-"

Excited to discuss aphantasia alongside this book at bookclub. What a wild read.

"'Everything I say," he replies, 'it's like, Oh, of course you'd say that, Miles, you're just nice. Or, you dont get it, because you're you, or, my new favorite, You're just like my asshole dad .'"

The scream I just let out, I've had almost this exact fight and I was in the wrong then, too. Emily needs to hold back a little!!

"He looks like exactly what he is: a man I was recently straddling."

I JUST SPIT OUT MY SOUP

I TOOK A LAP TOO SOON NOW THE CHEMISTRY IS POPPING AND I'M SQUEALING

Just had to go do a lap from laughing so hard oh my GOD

I started this last night before going to bed and I devoured 50 pages immediately. I giggled so hard I was shaking the bed and had my hands clamped over my mouth to not wake my partner, ACTUAL TEARS OF LAUGHTER POURING DOWN MY FACE. I love that everytime I start an Emily Henry book I think, "she can't possibly make this premise challenging or intruiging. And then her characters never react in expected ways. Love it.

"Two decades after Haiti gained its independence in 1804, France demanded that Haiti compensate former French slaveowners for the value of all those slaves who set themselves free. Yes, France essentially demanded reverse slave reparationz."

This book is blowing my mind.

"The second-wave Klan could return to its roots of terror because it had survived the kind of scrutiny that would have killed off any other secret society in a democracy. New York World in the fall of 1921 detailed murder, flogging, iron-branding, arson - at least 100 acts[...]
[...]
[Imperial Wizard Simmons] dismissed the numerous stories of violence as the work of a "paper owned and controlled by a Jew."

It is HELLA melodramatic and honestly a little bit disrespectful to compare your breakup in college to a whale carrying her dead child for 2 weeks.

Wow I am absolutely in love with the writing in this book. It's actually transporting to an all new place and time. Really incredibly well done.

This is honestly one of the most gripping and terrifying books I've ever read.

"We tried to make a go of it romantically for about six months, but he was too much like me." She looks into my eyes and then looks away just as suddenly. "It was a disaster. People like us need people who are... not like us to balance things out."

UM OKAY THAT KIND OF JUST PISSED ME OFF. I have met a LOT of successful Autistic couples. This reeks of ableism.

"... [an adoptee of TCHS] says offhandedly, 'You know, that book is on the New York Times bestseller list. I'm going to get it.'"

"Kate started reading Before We Were Yours the day Vivian told her about it. 'It is a part of our history,' she points out."

This self-plugging is so out of hand.

"They also visit the cemetery memorial to babies who died in the care of TCHS. 'That was emotional. It really was,' James [an orphan from TCHS] says. "I was thinking about Lisa's book." He recalled how the book's cover does not show the faces of the two children."

Y'all the constant shameless plugs for Before We Were Yours in this book is enough to make me sick.

Extremely flowery writing, purple prose abounds. But the author keeps referring to male genitalia as "peen/s," which is jarring.

"Let me tell you a couple of things about white cats. They are sneaky, they are mean, and they are below average intelligence. I am aware that you are not supposed to say stuff like that, that it is not POLITICALLY CORRECT but it's gd true and everyone knows."

This right-wing religious cat perspective is throwing me off in a big way,

It's already risky to have a POV that's a pet - but to make that pet be both religious and averse to the outside? Weird.

"The content that typically populates a Facebook wall or a Twitter feed, for example, would, on average, attract NO audience but when captured in the social conventions of these services, that same content will attract attention in the form of likes and comments."

In reference to how hard bloggers had to work to create real content back in the early 00's vs now. Kind of reframed everything for me.

"All the small items dotting the lawn - old Lego blocks, paper fans, tennis balls, a bath towel, a wooden spoon, a ruler - that spilled from the doors and windows like a fat woman who's discarded the wrappers of her eaten bonbons."

I thought this book suggested fatphobia when the "feminist" MC started a blog trashing every man she's ever slept with after she got cheekbones and an ass" - now I'm sure.

"Even though he wasn't supporting me, my father's favorite method of showing me love, and feeling needed and valued, was to give me money, and I realized that I subconsciously believed that if I got rich, I'd be rejecting his love and basically stabbing him in the heart.

This realization was easily some of the most important information I've ever received in my life..."

Y'all I'm about to lose it.

Oh, chill, the incest doubles down. At least it's cousins instead of siblings this time????? Not really enjoying watching my lowest bar for reading go even lower.

Man, I am TRYING to get through this. The writing is amazing, the details are beautiful, Eugenides sums up so much with clever little phrases... BUT YA GIRL IS NOT INTO THIS WHOLE "it's sibling incest but that's like super chill!" THING THAT HAS GRACED HER DOOR TWICE NOW IN THE LAST SIX MONTHS.

"...she observed in a tone which showed her to be that novelty among women-- one who finished a thought before beginning the sentence which was to convey it."

Welp, looks like I need to travel back in time and push Thomas Hardy down a hill.

I was actually getting kind of excited to hear a photographer character get excited about photographing craggy faces full of planes and angles!!! That thrills me in my own art world. ...And then as she was showing the collection of photos of bar dudes, she referred to the faces as scary, wild, and the dude said they were better than mugshots. Kind of cheapened things.

I mean, I'm not super into star-crossed lovers who have to cheat on their respective partners things... but it is funny af that the romantic rival's big thing is that she's into found art.

The stories have been interesting but not as horrifying as I was thinking to justify saying there has been a "fall" of the Secret Service, that is, until I reached the Obama years and these people lost their freaking minds. I got SLAPPED UP by those chapters! Now starting the Trump years, I feel fear.

"Hours later, the bottle of wine was long gone"

She had a migraine so bad her eyes were watering so she took 3 painkillers AND DRANK AN ENTIRE BOTTLE OF WINE? I love when writers make it obvious they have no idea what their characters are actually experiencing lol.

There are 4 books in one and boy am I tempted to add them individually to up my record low for me book count this year...