Hannah’s Reviews > Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng > Status Update

“Cora knows all too well that the mangled clockwork of her mind doesn’t always respond to logical arguments, that the fact that something is objectively safe doesn’t mean her mind won’t short-circuit anyway, make her hyperventilate until her limbs lose so much oxygen she can’t stand up.”

The next time someone asks me what it’s like to have OCD I will hand them this book

“She knows Father Thomas is a good person, that he would never turn her away for being Chinese. But her forgives the people who would, even though it’s not his place to dole out forgiveness on Cora’s behalf. He loves the people who would never love her.”

This line is so incisive but understated. How refusing to vehemently condemn racist ideology and violence is a form of violence in itself. Damn.

“No matter how hard she tries, she can only wield her sharpest thoughts against her own flesh. She knows, on some level, that most of the problems in her life are her own fault one way or another.”

OOF

“But Cora has already been to the place that they put you when you become a liability. Where they want your mouth loose and drooling from sedatives, release you when you’re quiet and learn the answers that they like, even when they know you’re lying but don’t care. Her world focuses in on the singular determination to never, ever, go there again.”

this book just keeps swinging and I just keep taking hits

“None of them can help her because she can’t tell them the truth. Whenever anyone gets a glimpse of what Cora’s mind is truly like, they always have one hand hovering over the panic button, ready to send her away, make her someone else’s liability. No one wants to help her untangle her mind; they want her to disappear.”

“And Cora doesn’t want anyone digging around in her brain, not anymore. She already knows there are too many frayed wires up there, too many broken circuits. She knows that organs are nothing but meat, and she knows a brain doctor isn’t any more shameful to see than an eye doctor, but she doesn’t think she can survive another medical professional telling her that her mind is a web they cannot untangle.”