Nina > Recent Status Updates

Interesting but not finding many highlightable passages. I'm not sure what that means, but generally when a book contains a lot of information that I find useful or actionable, there are frequent re-statements or summaries of the main point that I can pull out, separate from the immediate story being told. Not so here. May just be a stylistic choice. Maybe the material isnt really grabbing me. 🤷‍♀️

She's right that we dont talk enough about love, what it is and how to do it. This is the exact right book for me right now

Im highlighting so many passages its ridiculous. This thing is decorated like a Christmas tree at this point.

I really dislike Vesper. She's such an a**hole. Her cousin and ex-boyfriend are engaged and she's being so petty. Like, you disappeared from these people's lives six years ago. You have no claim here. Get over it. Anyway, I have guesses about where this plot is going, but I'll say right now that if Vesper ends up sucked back into the cult and comes to some unspeakable end, I don't think I'll be upset.

I find myself immediately skeptical because the first two women characters to be introduced by name and who are completely unrelated to each other, both go by their last names and I find this to be so unlikely that I am now giving this book mega side-eye as I continue onward.

I'm excited to read this one. Two things are selling me. Maybe three things. (1) The blurb on the back says "folk horror." Immediate yes. (2) "Insular community" screams cult and I'm a sucker for any and all cult stuff. (3) Rumors of a horse giving birth to a human baby? WEIRD. I'm down for weird. I like this cover, too. Barbed wire wrapped around a manicured hand holding a red horseshoe. Super intriguing. 🤔

I'm loving that SK is diving into the writing process. How you get out of a block. The idea of "fairness." I love books about authors and writing, but for some reason, I only ever thought of Misery as being about obsession and the horror of captivity. Pleasantly surprised to find there's more here than I expected. 🙂

I didn't see the horse face on the cover at first. I'm getting horce racing vibes. I like how the overlapping black circles provide a backdrop for the title and author name. Very cool. Not quite sure what to expect except that there will be weirdness. That line in the inside blurb is so mysterious, "She's not his mother. He's not her child." Well then, who are they to each other? Why is he there? Intriguing.

Just plugged in my night light before turning off the lights for bed so I'd say yeah, I'm a little creeped out.

Good creepy vibes. Jackson anthropomorphizes the house so that it's always "waiting" or "watching," which is a really effective way of producing a shudder when thinking about being inside it, like "a small creature swallowed whole by a monster," as Eleanor thinks when she first enters the house.

The book covers the shifting politics between the colonists and the Native Americans. The Virginia Company began with a surprisingly non-combative policy, though it seems ineptitude eventually led to distrust and violence. The amount of ineptitude is staggering. I was surprised to learn Jamestown was begun as a business venture with women and children coming later to the colony. Though this does make good sense.

I'm getting through it quickly, but the author repeats himself a good deal and there is less concrete advice than I would like. There are bits where I'm like "Aha, that makes a lot of sense"--but I feel utterly clueless how to apply that knowledge to my own life. So... maybe that will come toward the end of the book?

I thought this would be more of a biography... but it's less about the life of H.M. and more about the tests and studies done on him... and what science has learned from his case. Not bad necessarily--but not what I thought.

After reading about the creation of psychoanalysis I need something much, much lighter. This will do.

I'm starting this with some trepidation as the last time I read a Kingsolver novel I found myself crying uncontrollably by the end of it. Maybe I'm just feeling masochistic. We'll see.

This story is based around identity and how one comes to form ideas and a self-image and it really has caused me to examine myself. This book reads more like a memoir than a novel.

The end is in sight! I can't wait. I only wish I were the kind of person who could not finish a book and feel just fine about it.

Slogging through this. I appreciate the world the author has created, but it just feels like way too much detail.