claire lyons > Recent Status Updates

……..the narrator says she can’t stay in one place (extremely heavy handed metaphor for migration) and ??? she ran away as a child and “left books in her wake, hoping the pages would leave clues” or something like that. The writing style is a bit insufferable. Sticking it out for a bit because people say this is good…

honestly FIRE audiobook for when you need to clean your house

Fell asleep on the couch mid-essay. Not a great sign but probably says more about me than DFW

This guy hates MFA programs

Emma convinced me to read and I have faith in her but man it is going to be hard getting used to Pynchon’s flowery excess after pretty much exclusively reading DFW and Saunders this year. So far feeling… tentative and love the concept of a banana breakfast.

Ghostwritten af but it’s ok I forgive him

How the hell does he know what Miu Miu is…

LOVING THIS SECTION; channeling Marathe and Steeply IJ convos but states it much much more clearly
I was, in a way, too free — or my freedom wasn’t actually real. I was free to choose whatever because it didn’t really matter. If I wanted to matter, I would have to be less free by deciding to choose in some kind of definite way.

This first short story follows a marketing focus group. So fascinating that in 2004 DFW was already so concerned with online privacy and commerce

The novella at the end is very meh to me so far. The narration interruptions to tell us that nothing is going on is incredibly annoying. Like both me and DFW are annoyed at this piece for existing.

They had some ben Shapiro-like guy read the Girl with the Curious Hair short story rn and it is cracking me UUUUPPP

Ok it’s growing on me

I mean, I know this is the best book of all time or whatever but at this point I’m feeling like it’s dragging. The Cain and Abel allegory is a little on the nose. There are some gems of wisdom in here, but they’re primarily with the male characters and Cathy, the leading woman, is unequivocally evil. I find her much more entertaining for whatever reason.

I mostly listened while walking on the lakefront today & a bunch of motorcycles came by, not even kidding it was a motorcycle BLOCKADE, so I definitely missed some parts. TBH I was getting a bit confused with names since I didn’t have the text in front of me. So far I am LOOOVING Kathy. She is so hilariously evil. Comically evil.

Going to DNF this bc I HATE HATE HATE the audiobook narrator. And lowkey why is this smut. Will put me in reading slump if I am not careful, so discarding for now.

Song of Achilles flashbacks

hated this last short story. determined to make it thru, but against my will.

We’ve got abt 80 pages to wrap this up and I’ve got no idea where it is going

Holy fucking shit plot twist that makes so much sense but I never saw coming