Faith Rice-Mills’s Reviews > Red City > Status Update

“And Sam wonders if this is how it happens to all of them, that once upon a time, he had seen beauty in the world too, had trusted and smiled and been a child. He had kept his heart open until he couldn’t bear the wounds any longer, and then he had shut it, letting himself go still and cold. “

“She doesn’t want to think about it. Most of her feels numb. Expose the mind repeatedly to the same trauma, again and again and again, and it will learn to protect itself from the extraordinary. The details grow fuzzy; the heart, exhausted, searches for something else to occupy itself.”

“Maybe it’s all of it. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe happiness only exists in fragments. Maybe it is only the absence of grief….

Everything looks infinite, like it’s all possible, like she can become anything. All is one, and one is all. And isn’t this worth it? Isn’t she worth it?”

“People love to talk about the wickedness of money even as they covet it, because the truth is that it can save you too, can set you free. “

“When something terrible happens, do we become the best version of ourselves?”

“Everything can be more beautiful. And because it has the potential to be beautiful later, everything suddenly feels less beautiful now.”

“They are the first English phrases her mother ever learned: work hard, reach for the stars, the words of a mother who wants her daughter to be able to escape the life she had, the advice of someone who has seen darker times and is trying to follow the light out. It is the only thing that matters. School, degree, job, money, freedom. There is always, always hope, if you work hard. “