Nicole Field’s Reviews > Those Beyond the Wall > Status Update

"That kind of destruction and hate doesn't have a border. It always comes back. It eats and eats and eats, finding new targets until there's no one left to swallow but the ones who sent it. It starts with those outside the wall, and it ends with the whole world."

That’s all growth is, getting too big to stay somewhere that used to feel good. Just having one less place in the whole world that fits right.

I’ve been gone long enough to have forgotten how hard up the city is about genders. They want gender like a border, something fixed, something to be defended from trespass. We like genders like landmasses here, like puddles that congregate, evaporate, and re-form.

“Exlee says jealousy is a poison toy make for others but drink yourself.”

Hearing the name again is a reminder of what this city is, and who it praises.

Adam's such a piece of shit, it's wild to me that there is one person in the world who can't cope with the idea of him being gone, much less two. It gives me hope. If you have to be more of a monster than Adam to be totally abandoned, it means I might not die alone either.

Author's Note from Micaiah Johnson:
If you sense an undercurrent of rage in this novel, you are not wrong. But it is not bitterness. Bitterness is anger with nowhere to go. Bitterness and resignation are close and tempting cousins. Anger with a target is Rage, and Rage is a sister to Hope alone. We rage because we do believe things can be better, by fire if necessary.