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“Galilee Kinkaid was born with an ache inside her.”

“The deep sea is a haunted house: a place in which things that ought not to exist move about in the darkness.”
Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

“Juan is just below the surface; alone. He can’t seem to see me, can’t seem to stay here, at the surface. I take his hands into my own, and he begins to speak, but not to me, to another, inside the dream.”<\i>

”You walk around with this huge fucking neon sign above your head and this arrow pointing down at you, like those signs in front of motels that say rooms available, except your sign says something terrible happened to me, and you keep that sign all lit up like that above you, and you want people to ask, you want the whole fucking world to feel sorry for you…”<\i>

”I drank for pleasure. He drank for information.”

This book is like people-watching in the city in the middle of the night, but a little separated from the scene, like you’re in a cafe with a warm mug of tea in your hands on the other side of a window. A big plot point is the narrator picking up little odds and ends of who his father was and gluing them together - maybe that’s why it feels familiar.

DNF. Just can't get into fantasy.

DNF. I’m terrified of clowns and I finished Stephen King’s “It” but I had to put this one down. Wonderfully written with a pace that drowns out the anticipation, but I just can’t do the constant dead body references. Dua is a very descriptive writer and has an affinity for dead faces peeling off in bad dreams, but I just can’t do it, man.

Good grief, this is not a book to start in a dark, empty house.

“I’m not allowed to drive a car because you need an official license and I’ve failed the official test fourteen times now. Instead, I use a bike with one wheel in the front, two in the back, and a metal basket behind my seat to carry stuff in.”

DNF. I absolutely loved Julia Fine’s other book, The Upstairs House, and her writing was just as beautiful in this one. But Maddalena And The Dark was just too world-buildy for me, and not enough story to keep me rivited.

Goddamnit, there’s like 13 books. I thought there were three. I finally find a series I can’t put down and it’s gotta be THIS.

DNF

I just can’t get into it, man. I can barely stand kids’ prattle IRL. I definitely don’t want a large narrative with it.

I’m a few pages into this book, and so far it’s not my vibe. I’ve decided to push through a little bit because it’s got so many awards and glowing reviews, and I suppose the reason that I have in itself. The narrative is a 9 year old boy who tends to go on random, distracting tangents… just like a real kid. Great writing. Distracting narrative as a result.
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...”You need to question whether the reason people keep using you is because you don’t know your worth outside of being able to fix other people. So, subconsciously, you surround yourself with broken people and energy parasites because they make you feel needed. Without them you might feel useless, because you never experienced/were exposed to examples of a healthy reciprocal love as a child... maybe.”

“...yes, Juan, God first makes you see the worst of yourself and then gives you a chance for redemption.” -p. 88

“Don’t you see? I’ve wrecked everything,” I told him.
And he, without batting an eye answered, “well done! Now that you’ve torn everything to bits, you can start a new life. You’ve done exactly what you needed to do, no more, no less, you’ve destroyed a negative past in order to embark on a positive future...”

I wanted to finish this series. I honestly really, truly wanted to like it, but halfway through the third book the story began to lag. I felt like I was on the desert with the characters… Same shit, different day.