Joey
This really hit the spot for me - grief and nature and chronic pain and Broder's signature no holds barred neurotic inner dialogue. Also many tender conversations with inanimate objects. Is the meta about a writer a little twee? Maybe but I didn't mind it as much as I might have in a more affected story. This one is so raw that I felt it just made the whole thing feel even more guts-cut-open vulnerable.
My only complaint is that this is so short - there were blank pages between the chapters but c'mon just admit it's a novella!
This really hit the spot for me - grief and nature and chronic pain and Broder's signature no holds barred neurotic inner dialogue. Also many tender conversations with inanimate objects. Is the meta about a writer a little twee? Maybe but I didn't mind it as much as I might have in a more affected story. This one is so raw that I felt it just made the whole thing feel even more guts-cut-open vulnerable.
My only complaint is that this is so short - there were blank pages between the chapters but c'mon just admit it's a novella!
This was always interesting, sometimes shocking and occasionally hot. I really appreciated the genuine attempt to portray the headfuck of maybe being in love and being kinda crazy and craving sex and connection and the whole mess. Sometimes it seemed like there was too much therapy speak but also, we all have that in our heads now.
This was always interesting, sometimes shocking and occasionally hot. I really appreciated the genuine attempt to portray the headfuck of maybe being in love and being kinda crazy and craving sex and connection and the whole mess. Sometimes it seemed like there was too much therapy speak but also, we all have that in our heads now.
Re-reading some DA in honour of her passing in late 2024. Cavedweller has some big dramatic plot lines and characters out of a movie but it comes to life with great dialogue and Allison's classic concern with the inner lives and hurts of tough Southern women who have been through the worst. Maybe some things are a little neat at times but this novel is a beautiful/brutal world to live within.
Re-reading some DA in honour of her passing in late 2024. Cavedweller has some big dramatic plot lines and characters out of a movie but it comes to life with great dialogue and Allison's classic concern with the inner lives and hurts of tough Southern women who have been through the worst. Maybe some things are a little neat at times but this novel is a beautiful/brutal world to live within.
It's cheesy and overblown and obvious.... Of course we know at the start that the one who has hardened her heart to avoid pain will end up realising it's better to open up to love. There are way too many huge big plot lines for everyone and emotional revelations and c'mon change doesn't come so quickly.
Besides this many of the details don't ring true but the setting is quite entrancing and sure, I cried at the end.
It's cheesy and overblown and obvious.... Of course we know at the start that the one who has hardened her heart to avoid pain will end up realising it's better to open up to love. There are way too many huge big plot lines for everyone and emotional revelations and c'mon change doesn't come so quickly.
Besides this many of the details don't ring true but the setting is quite entrancing and sure, I cried at the end.
So much to think about and much much to be learned from this tiny remote community.
The writing does a good job at walking the line between academic and general text with lots of interesting stories, examples and characters to keep it approachable.
So much to think about and much much to be learned from this tiny remote community.
The writing does a good job at walking the line between academic and general text with lots of interesting stories, examples and characters to keep it approachable.
Rereading some Dorothy Allison as I didn't get a chance to mark her death. Her depiction of this whole tiny world of Bone and her aunts and cousins is so brilliant... the kind of insider perspective on a life shaped by poverty and all it creates that can really reach inside you and change how you see things. Brutal and so beautiful.
Rereading some Dorothy Allison as I didn't get a chance to mark her death. Her depiction of this whole tiny world of Bone and her aunts and cousins is so brilliant... the kind of insider perspective on a life shaped by poverty and all it creates that can really reach inside you and change how you see things. Brutal and so beautiful.