Joe’s Reviews > The Unseen World > Status Update
Joe
is on page 316 of 451
Later, Ada would remember these afternoons as some of the pleasantest ones of her life; it was the quiet of the library, its calmness (she breathed more deeply; her heart rate slowed); the smell of it, must and mildew and paper, like the smell of David's house; the echoing footfalls of students and librarians and researchers, which gave the place the feeling of a pool or spa.
— Apr 25, 2025 04:45PM
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Joe
is on page 359 of 451
Being alone with ELIXIR reminded Ada, in an odd way, of being alone with David, at the end of his life. It was the uncertainty about what he was going to say: whether he was going to make sense, whether he was even going to speak. It was also the feeling of being reunited with someone who knew a great deal about her, for better or worse--the comfortable feeling of not having to explain much, or anything at all.
— Apr 25, 2025 05:50PM
Joe
is on page 289 of 451
Miss Holmes's apartment was not unlike how Ada had pictured it. Oriental carpets crisscrossed one another on top of hardwood floors, and the furniture was mismatched and comfortable. Not surprisingly, all of the walls were lined with bookshelves, and all of the bookshelves were filled with books. There was a Christmas tree in the corner, already decorated, with little colored lights strung around it in three loops
— Apr 25, 2025 04:09PM
Joe
is on page 222 of 451
David always got off the highway early to drive through Lake George Village, which had a main street lined with kitsch of various kinds: giant, friendly lumberjack statues made out of papier-mâché; outsized teepees with arrow-signs pointing inward, advertising AUTHENTIC INDIAN APPAREL; Viking-themed miniature golf courses; a wax museum with a window display featuring Frankenstein playing the organ.
— Apr 24, 2025 05:32PM
Joe
is on page 168 of 451
What more she longed for, she could not say, certainly it was nothing so terrifying as sex, nor any activity that required being unclothed. She was vaguely embarrassed by her body, certain that, though it was changing in wild and unpredictable ways, it could offer nothing of value to anyone else; to Ada it was simply the thing below her head, which bore inside it her brain--her only worthy attribute, she thought.
— Apr 23, 2025 05:09PM
Joe
is on page 144 of 451
It was something she had never truly considered, about adults. She had always somehow imagined that the loss of a loved one would hurt less for them: that it would feel like something natural; that they would be calm and practiced and dulled to death. But something in Liston's voice, as she spoke of her mother, made Ada realize that she had been incorrect in this assumption.
— Apr 22, 2025 06:02PM
Joe
is on page 88 of 451
Ever since learning about neurotransmitters from David, she had imagined her brain as a water park, a maze of waterslides down which various chemicals were released. Charcoal and smoke and fresh-cut grass usually sent rivers of serotonin down the slides in Ada's head. But that night the scents only served to remind her of David's absence. Warm summer evenings, he always said, were his favorites too.
— Apr 21, 2025 05:51PM
Joe
is on page 64 of 451
On Saturday, August 11, 1984, Ada woke up to find David missing. She knew he was gone as soon as she woke up: normally she could sense his presence in the house from the small noises he made, his constant movement, the vibration of the floor from a jittering leg. But that morning there was a foreign stillness to the house, a quietness that made her think, at first, that she was someplace else.
— Apr 21, 2025 05:05PM
Joe
is on page 13 of 451
First, it was late August and David was hosting one of his dinners. "Look at the light, Ada," he said to her, as she stood in the kitchen. The light that day was the color of honey or of a roan horse, any warm organic thing like that, coming through the leaves of the tree outside the window in handsome dapples, lighting parts of the countertop generously, leaving others blue.
— Apr 20, 2025 03:30PM
