Blossom > Recent Status Updates

“At first sight, they were still an unlikely match—opposites in looks, upbringing, and temperament. But on the artist’s color wheel, two opposite colors were considered complementary. Their high contrast caused high impact, and they looked their brightest when placed next to each other.”

“Ruskin’a opinion has lost its teeth. She was no longer working for his praise. She was no longer working for praise from a nebulous audience, either. Her work her was dedicated to people she knew, and hopefully it contributed toward the changes she wished to see in Britain.”

- Hattie’s reason/purpose for her art in the British art exhibit.

“You are not my only jailer. I’m standing up against everyone who forced my hand…,a whole society that colludes and agrees that is is morally better for a woman to be chained to a stranger than to be forgiven for leaning in for a kiss.”

- Hattie’s reasoning to the heartbroken Lucien, who doesn’t quite understand her struggle as a women in London society (Victorian era).

“I wish to live without a single doubt that I did not fall in love with my captor because I had no other choice, but that I am freely, truly loving my husband. Marriage costs me my rights. If I were to give them up, I need a choice.”

- Hattie freeing herself from the imprisonment of marriage she was forced in despite her love for Lucien.

“Her gaze locked with his, and it was one of those transcendent gazes that look inside a man and see him, while letting him see her in return, and the sense of connection turned his knees soft. An old reflex stirred in him to raise an ice wall against such weakness.”

- the moment Lucien falls in love❤️

“A pirate is free. He has seen the world and does bad things and doesn’t care. He just does and takes as he pleases; it’s who he is. There’d be no rules with him.”

— Hattie envying and pirate.

“the part where we lounge in a parlor and read books—they have to be the correct books and they have to be read at appropriate times. Propriety and etiquette rule every step we take, every word we say.”

—Victorian women in London society

“Dangerous, because the legends about the selkies never ended with the trapped female living out her days with the man who had stolen her. Inevitably, someone always found her skin, and she would slip it on and leave her husband and family to return to the sea without a backward glance.”

Lucien’s fear of losing Hattie…

“for thirty years such masterful feats of engineering allowed people to move freely and quickly across vast distance and uninhabitable terrains, and yet a woman must not go shopping or to a gallery by herself. It was too dangerous, they said, for her reputation, her virtue. But who did the endangering? Men.”

“Mr. Blackstone had accused her of finding Tragedy enchanting. But perhaps every woman had known a moment when she felt as though she were drowning, and the only comfort was that there could be some beauty, some dignity, in that, too.”

“it is nigh impossible for a woman to achieve anything when burden with a husband, and the constant demands of wifely protocol, not to mention children.”

- Lucie’s reasoning for not wanting to get married.

“She had taken a rogue into her bed, into her life…”

Lucie and Tristan’s “friends with benefits” situation is just like the relationships in modern time. Instead of traditionally following the order of approval, courting, marriage, then sex, they go for sex then decide from there what they want to be. It’s complex but very similar to how relationships are now in the modern world. This is the freedom I think Lucie is fighting for in a way for women.

“She looked down at him, glorious in his nudity, and briefly, she felt drunk on the possibilities that came with having a lover of few principles. It felt peculiarly close to freedom.”

“a woman who use words as weapons on behalf of girls who saw no choice, but to jump. While the ladies and her mother saloon ripped it over the agony of choosing the correct wallpaper and hush tones, Mrs. Butler talked about forcibly, apprehended, women, and injustice, and double standards, and she had hung on every word.“

- Lucien’s reason for her banishment and her decision to be an activist.

“The university had united on the same settee, a banking heiress studying the fine arts, a Scottish lady working as a research assistant for her professor, father, and a Vicar‘s daughter, a Duchess, studying the classics.”

“She was not just left on the shelf, she was the shelf.”

Talking about Lucie.

Kiera seems to be such an unbearable character. I understand she’s hurt and angry given the situation she’s in with Ronan, but her stubbornness is so bad she doesn’t seem to be thinking things through. Asking Ronan for a divorce for example as a deal is reckless on her part. That can get her family banned from the port because that isn’t what they agreed!

I’ll see through this character growth.

“I think I fell in love with you at the Commoners Ball, when you asked if you could try the gasoline-or it may have been the moment you told me your parents could not afford a first name.” (255)

“Dad still needs a surgeon, and apparently the queen is Folk, and apparently I’m Folk, and I’m still in love with a man who’s more unapproachable than ever.” (243)

Interesting plot twist about Hugh being one of the folks. Makes sense given his constant, weird pursuit towards Hester.