Juli > Recent Status Updates

at this point I’m just reading her for research

glad I stuck it out past the weird metaphors because past the 2/3rds mark, there’s some interesting quotes and musings

I know what you’re thinking ‘how are u reading two tennis books at the same time’ -> the holds cleared at the same time ok

Unfortunately this also allows me to compare which…if I had to chose a writing style/narrative I jiive with…let’s just say this isn’t my favorite

the stupid fucking scene where he plays his first grand slam match and then walks over to talk to that 9 year old kid and they talk about tennis fuck, shut up, that got me (we all remember where we were when tennis made an impression in our lives okay ….. 😭)

if I have to read one more jarring metaphor about milk or a bowl im

(i get what he’s going for, i do, but it keeps taking me out. the transition is not seem less enough)

fuck ass story got me emotional “we are serious”, cool, stab me with a fork it would hurt less damn

the completion-ist in me striking again…

third act tension/drama coming for me wow. what a set up. he has an intuition for building these characters and weaving their relationships for a quiet building broiling. I can’t imagine where the last 30% goes

they tried their hardest, but they never seemed to gather enough sunlight to shine

Litfic prose can just be so 🤌🏽

Stuart is also doing a fantastic job at scene setting. like I could never.

I fear there is no good end for one of our leads??? (or at least she’s doing a good job of making us think so)

the inherent melancholic loneliness of his writing 👌🏽 👌🏽 love that the tone is very much reminiscent but also so different from young mungo to me in this one

i love you a bit more than yesterday and a little bit less than tomorrow

the writing style is not my cup of tea but this line deserves its own applause

save me leo/tristan codependency save me

also the switch up in the aziza-dion conflict. 👌🏽

NO ONE TOLD ME ID BE EMOTIONAL 1/4 OF THE WAY IN. WE JUST STARTED. WHY WOULD HE WRITE THIS

I have forgotten so much between books 2 and 3 but fuck it we ball

at this point i think im just reading to see how it ends 🫠

“That’s the beauty of being nude in a river; you’re nobody. You’re anybody you want to be. It’s just a dream.”

I’m always going to judge every time a man writes a woman character (and here I am, fucking judging) but idk we’re only 70 pages in and she existed for like two pages so. I like our little witch girl though

re-reading this is really making me ache for another novelization (which we won’t get). there’s such an inherent humor and charm in being in all of their heads (i have so much cuteness aggression when it comes to seiji tell me why that boy can never be direct about ANYTHING even in his own mind (the repression for him runs so deep my god))

“If Nicholas could be faster than Jesse, perhaps anybody could be anything at all. What else could Nicholas be? What else could Seiji be?”

the implicit narrative that he’s been doing life on autopilot in his fencing fucking sends. AND, the fact that this (1)
guy frustrates him b/c his play is unrefined yET it forces him to alter his game in ways he hasn’t considered before. I love you sports anime tropes

“If you’re fast enough, none of it can catch you”

fuck this fucking book for still lancing me 6 years later how the fuck. i did a whole comic re-read and then decided to re hit the books because why not and !!!! cs pacat really did design a whole hs team of boys with trauma and it eats. I love sports as a metaphor for emotional turmoil and they get this perfectly.

I love you sad broken poetries of a past that never was (I fear I know how this ends)

sometimes I forget how beautiful the language can sound and then i read lit written by a poet