Natalie > Recent Status Updates

“She fell into a deep pool of sticky water, which eventually closed over her head. She saw nothing and heard nothing but a faint booming sound, which was the sound of the sea rolling over her head. While all her tormentors thought that she was dead, she was not dead, but curled up at the bottom of the sea.” The Voyage Out, Chapter 25, Virginia Woolf

“…Rachel again neglected this opportunity of revealing the secrets of her sex. She had, indeed, advanced so far in the pursuit of wisdom that she allowed these secrets to rest undisturbed; it seemed to be reserved for a later generation to discuss them philosophically.” -Chapter 22

I got an early copy! Immediately sucked in.

Page One: “I was only eight years old when my aunts cursed me.” SUCH A GOOD OPENING LINE!

Page Fourteen: “Questions were my bane, but personal, open-ended questions were my ruin.” Same girl, same.

Page Eighteen: This is the moment I fall in love with Cressida! “Don’t ask me questions like that again,”

“But mostly, I thought about Vera and me. Two bitches living on a little chunk of rock off of the Maine coast.”
-Chapter 7

“But in the end, the sea takes everything.”
-Chapter 7

“Sometimes … being a bitch is all a woman has to hold onto.”
-Chapter 7

“I don’t guess any of us here know what it is to be that old and have devils after you you can’t explain even to yourself.”
-Chapter One

No matter what the cause, anal bleeding is never cool.
-Chapter 2

I contemplated this turn of phrase long enough to document it. Context: Blood is coming out of every other orifice due to the venom of a snake bite, and he thought it looked kinda cool up until the final one.

“Nature is organized on the principle of conserving energy.”

Just started and dudeface used the phrase “tidely lubricated” and I am now very invested.

“He couldn’t afford to marry her. He couldn’t afford to run away with her. The way things were going, he could barely afford lunch.”

“Phoebe’s hungry listening helped Janie to tell her story. So she went on thinking back to her young years and explaining them to her friend in soft, easy phrases while all around the house, the night time put on flesh and blackness.”

“Give me a call when you’re over your sulks.”

“She was in her fifties and had a face of a rather intense sheep.”

Best. Description. Ever.

“...a richer tone was growing on the sun.”

- The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck
January 24, 2020