Penny Smith’s Reviews > Sunburn > Status Update

It’s cruel and frustrating that this is exactly what would have happened with Susannah. She would have lived in a new place, with a job and new friends, queer and accepting friends, and she would have blossomed in a new life without hearing from her family or her old friends. This is what was going to happen anyway. She was clinging to something that didn’t even exist.

The cruelest joke of all is that she is trying to keep things she never had. She never had a mother’s love, if it’s conditional. She’s never felt truly connected with the girls as friends. It’s just proximity. But suddenly, she’s so afraid of losing these things. She’s deluding herself because it’s not about them. It’s about feeling alone. What she doesn’t realize is that there is life behind beyond

“I put my mouth to her. She has soured. There are layers of dirt on my Susannah, and I love her. I will love her till her bones brown. I am taken over with relief when I see her chest rise and feel her shaking. There is something in her still. The breath she lets out is weighted, louder than the rushing of the water in the ocean, it brings new dimensions to me. She is not numb. I could bring her back to life”

I think this is a reveal?? I don’t think we knew that Susanna was part of kiss chase. But I did theorize it in the beginning. I love that.

The sentiments about falling into the unknown are too relatable for the time I’m at in my life. “I will have no plans at all. Nothing will be coming, nothing will be going. I will just exist until I don’t.” It show I feel right now.

The self destruction of it all is sickening and relatable to read. And though it’s not a 1:1 for me, the mother daughter dynamic rings true in a lot of ways

Reading lit fic is scary because at any point you can pick one up and the out of nowhere it becomes a horror novel when you realize you relate too hard to the self hating self destructive main character