Riane > Recent Status Updates

The annual goal this year of 2026 is 26, but not simply that, instead it shall be like this:
~ 26 BB or board books
~ 26 kids' books (flat, chapter, activity, short stories/books)
~ 26 novels or TPBs
~ 26 e-books or online material

Based on 2025, not all books are of similar heft, content or impact, hence this consideration for estimated books read in addition to goodreads book statistics.

Read >70+ this year.

01.

19 Trust in God,
past: His mercy
present: His love
future: His providence

21 Do not neglect and give great attention and gain much cheerfulness of life. Fireplace: "a live thing in a dead room". --> perspective and purpose can shift value in something

22 Nature "lives and loves in every place."

01.

13 There's wisdom not in books, but in human hearts of people around us... more home truths to be learnt from a noisy debate in an alehouse than in a government setting. -> sometimes manners police too much of the profound thought

14 It is the making, rather than the results, that brings joy. -> process over product

17 The most important things don't always take up the most words!

18 Why restless, hope still

Will stop reading... because I have lost access to this via an app reader on a smart phone that has been on standby for repairs since May 2025. Halt, until I find an alternative but no guarantees.

p.63~ do people love you because you are so positive, or are you so positive since they love you?
~ "Sometimes she actually yearned to want something, so much that she could hardly bear it. It seemed so vital, wanting things. But usually the feeling passed."

The world is an ultimately paradoxical equation, it tells you to want something then just as quick as you do, it tries to take it away and deny you. What to do.

p.63~ "It's easier to stay optimistic if you never have to clear up the mess afterwards."

To know the struggle of resolution and the efforts, pains, and life it takes to achieve what's necessary. To survive before you even try to live. So few do understand that without the pain, you wouldn't know how hard it is to get back up again.

p.48~ ...she wanted to be noticed. Mother never did, because she never had to be noticed, for she always did everything without being told.

p.49~ "...from that day devoted herself to just walking around being afraid of dying and lying there stinking."

p.61~ it's difficult to know who you are, once you are alone, when you have always been there for the sake of someone else."

Living for someone else is not living.

p.40/41~ "Not that [she] didn't have any dreams of her won, it was just that his were bigger, and the one with the biggest dreams always wins in this world."/ "A few years turned into more years, and more years turned into all years. Years have a habit of behaving like that."

Good and bad habits have a way of staying as is, complacent and unmoving for all time, especially when it dulls the mind and spirit to change.

p.40 ~ "...once upon a time he did care... as if her knew she was there. It's difficult to know when love blooms; suddenly one day you wake up and it's in full flower. It works the same way when it wilts -- one day it is just too late."

Flipside of the previous entry, indifference, uncaring avoidance and abuse even in small doses becomes a cancer that hurts soon, in even the most beautiful moments and relationships.

p.37 ~ "...boxes may look as if they only contain soil, but underneath there are flowers waiting for spring. The winter requires whoever is doing the watering to have a bit of faith, in order to believe that what looks empty has every potential."

Faith, love, and care make the difference even the most impossible situations can't fight to put down.

p.37 ~ "...boxes may look as if they only contain soil, but underneath there are flowers waiting for spring. The winter requires whoever is doing the watering to have a bit of faith, in order to believe that what looks empty has every potential."

Faith, love, and care make the difference even the most impossible situations can't fight to put down.

The goal at this point, is to gain more sympathy for people who are labeled as with social ineptitude or anti-social.

Labels often become definitive impressions that leave a lasting mark on people, though it can be argued that such notions are unreliable, impermanent, and perhaps untrue. Bias and prejudice may play at these and be more peer-evaluated than factual, often judgmental opinions, rarely real truth.

"If one had a job, people notice if one doesn't show up... I want someone to know I'm here."

Everyone now and again, even with self assurance and unmatched confidence, has moments of desire for validation, attention, notice and the occasionally care from others. Whether special or from a stranger, the human craving of companionship and solidarity exists in all, shallow or deep, we share that humanity.

"If one had a job, people notice if one doesn't show up... I want someone to know I'm here."

Everyone now and again, even with self assurance and unmatched confidence, has moments of desire for validation, attention, notice and the occasionally care from others. Whether special or from a stranger, the human craving of companionship and solidarity exists in all, shallow or deep, we share that humanity.

The immediate peculiarity of the titular character provides a glimpse of both a refreshing and infuriating nature to be in the presence of.

Like many misunderstood persons, society may be left to reveal more filling details of her yet, such as pain, life and experience, if there is more to her that was is introduced.

The introductory note gave a heart-warming start to say that our love of what we love is instinctive, natural and becoming, completely at peace and uncontained in its place in our hearts. Just as it is with actual love, the organic feeling it fills us is the very reason we fall into it, it's all too real and forthcoming that we do not know how to avoid it.

p.454 ~
"Live for today!
Look after yourself, for tomorrow!
...the thing about nearly dying s it totally makes you want to live."

p.460 ~ "Other people's love could be over-rated,"

p.467 ~ "...making one's luck...with a pinch of bravery and a large chunk of determination thrown in for good measure."

p.470 ~ "...sometimes you have to go out and try again, even if it is a risk of making a d* of yourself twice over."

p.442 ~ "If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing properly."

p.443 ~ ...put it out there, her heart and her hopes, in one big act of love...hell if he ignored that too, then so be it. At least she would have tried.

p.447 ~ "Big enough for all your books". -> To fill it with all things you who I love, love.

p.449 ~ ...how a relationship was supposed to be, both of them trying to put things right simultaneously...

"...even in death, [she] was opening new doors and pushing her through them."

There are times in our mortal lives and finite time that we are fortunate enough to catch fate with someone who would be a great as influence on us even after we have parted. Some relationships transcend beyond time and space, and those who have that luck are the most fortunate to find it.

p.358 ~ It's much harder to forgive someone and be gracious about their screw-ups when you're feeling crap about your own life.

p.361 ~ It would be so easy to pack up and go, admit defeat and retreat home, pretend it was all a fever dream.

-> The choice to respond in practical, sensible ways may be greatly challenged by stubbornness to seek the adventure, the brazen challenge of the unknown. The choice is yours.

p.352 ~ The House of Women shall not fall. A not-so politically neutral stance of the newbie journalist that was not deterred by her boyfriend's definite rocky battle with the very refuge she advocated for. The narrative changed, she felt at home and devoted to a point to the new home she rushed into no more than a month ago. Then, making decisions in solely for her beau, now the water tides her to choose herself.

p.342

The coupling of Charlotte and Ned with the beautiful two daughters is reminiscent of the movie The Holiday with Jude Law and Cameron Diaz. The unexpected babysitting mishap turned homey date joined by little humans that lead to a wonderful home date that redefines relationship woes and wants.

p.326 ~ even the most outwardly seeming sensible person could act irrationally when they'd been badly hurt. -> people all have limits to what they can and will take.

p.329 ~ men try to live up to stereotypes every bit as much as women did. perfect people, did anyone really achieve that? or just give up at a certain point of the day. didn't every human being feel the same way, now and then? -> public you =/= real you

p.320 ~ perfect nuclear family, all enthusiastic pack of lies and hollow center, one knock and it all falls down. -> you can only feel sorry for the enthusiastic trusting person victimized by the cheater, the manipulator.

p.324 ~ People were so fragile at the end of the day. Everyone covered up, constructing public faces for themselves. -> you can never truly know the life of others, given all the lies to mask.

p.282 ~ Life just chucks shitty things at you now and then, and all you can do is try your hardest to be an unshitty person in response. -> You always have a choice in how you react to the world's shit.

p.287 ~ finally the trio meets as a trio. half way through the book, but ok, a lot of story building took place.