MsA
Contains spoilers
TLDR: I loved the book! main protagonist is interesting to follow, story really good! I like the dance of reality and fiction. GOOD TIMES
Notable Moments:
I once had a substitute teacher in third grade who gave us the following art assignment: We were to scribble randomly all over a blank page with a black crayon. When we finished that, we were to color the page in, filling gaps and spaces between the arbitrary lines with whatever color we wanted. We weren’t supposed to be actively drawing or creating anything. She wanted an abstract explosion of shapes and color. The teacher claimed that when we finished, she would be able to see a secret picture emerge from the patternless mess we’d made, and she would be able to get us to see it too. I accepted her assignment as an ultimate challenge, and I scribbled and scratched and colored and made something I thought was as indecipherable as static. When I presented my page, she squinted and looked and looked and I thought I had won, but she said, “Ah, there,” as though disgusted with herself for not seeing the obvious sooner. “A bird sticking its head through a cocoon-shaped nest.” I blinked, unable or unwilling to initially see the image, but then I saw it too. The multicolored bits of shapes, like the digital blobs of an old tube television when your face was inches from the screen, formed a bird with a wide pumpkin-shaped head peeking out from its cavelike nest. It looked too big for its nest and angry at having been discovered or disturbed. I was angry too. I couldn’t articulate this at the time, but the teacher demonstrated that I wouldn’t always be able to see, to really see, what I was looking at.
The memory of that monstrous bird image struck the first chord of fear. Standing alone in the dark classroom of a dead, condemned school, I didn’t want to see the secret within the supply room wall’s slashing pattern. I didn’t want to see that same bird; maybe this time its head would be larger, beak opened wider, and finally free from its nest. I aimed the flashlight beam back to the floor.
I love this description of that fear of the unknown, maybe even more of that, the fear of KNOWING and not wanting to know more. I love this section, really stuck with me and got me kinda on the protagonist side even more than I already was by this point in the story.
talked about how the teens do it because they can and because they’re inexplicably driven to do it and the viewers will be driven to ask why why why and not have a clear, easy answer. That’s what’s scary, that’s why I want to make this movie
I am viewers. BUT yeah good job calling me out. I give points if its earn. HE(the writer) earned it lol
Fifty years old with no career to speak of, I was adrift, and had been so since the last day on-set, if not before then.
this point I was worried the protagonist was gonna do a "imma get back at society" but they did not. Im a sucker for subverting expectations- even when those expectations are personal lived experiences. EASY brownie points from ME.
He’s pitiful. We’re afraid for him, for what might happen to him. But we want to see what the teens will do to him. We need to see it. Maybe we’ve been influenced by the established rules within the movie. Regardless, we agree his transgression should be addressed.
I did appreciate like a direct look in the camera moment of this kinda genre/medium. It extra interesting b/c its HAPPENING IRL too* and I'm the audience within the context of reading this book! seeing how far it would go, why it go that far and wanting to see it. This is a reason I really enjoyed "The fisherman" I live for that feeling but unlike the fisherman where I thought it was a chance it wasn't intentional. in Horror Movie: I think it was one of the main "goals" of the book! and it was successful
LOVE it. Gonna be in the re-read rotation
Contains spoilers
I enjoyed the commentary on participation in society and how alien it feels when you don't accept the program
its awful that so many people failed her
lol the story was bleak and the ending took a surprising turn that I actually like(don't ask me to explain it, i think about it and update)
Small real specific note: I appreciate they didn't try to have sex with her, as far as the book went i can see lesser writers going ALL the way with the shock...It felt purposeful (lol is that fuck up i think it okay b/c it works for the story? im just glad it didn't go far for no reason IMO)
I felt my time was respected reading this. I felt the frustration, the pain, and the desperation to survive no matter what and how that looks living in a world that doesn't care about who YOU are.
Would I read this again? Yes - if looking for grim telling/view on societal expectations and failures that I personally emphasize with.
Contains spoilers
Its really unflinching with how evil people can be. Overall-Its a hard read.
Notable Moments:
He won’t believe her,” he said. “He won’t do nothin’. Cops talk but they never do anything to you.”
It was like something Ruth had said to us once. Cops talk but they never do.
- Mood: Depression
- It's horrific how many people failed her, and its awful to know that this is real. it just floored me
So “See you, Meg,” I whispered.
Like she’d thank me.
I was out of my mind. I was crazy.
- Mood: *laugh-cough*
- I just really appreciate the acknowledgement.
Where it went was to the basement.
- Mood: GASPED
- That's all of chapter 24. Turning to that page after..alot!? Woof
How could I have been so stupid? Almost as if she deserved her punishment now. She’d been tricked into thinking Ruth and the others were human in the same way she was human and that consequently it could only go so far. Only so far. And it wasn’t true. They weren’t the same at all. She’d realized that. Too late.
- MOOD: Depression+
- my heart broke, this is a bleak story
Contains spoilers
I really enjoyed reading this book! The themes of grief really resonated with me but more than anything I really enjoyed the WRITING. The way he describes certain scenes:
AN EXAMPLE:
Actually, it feels more like flat-out, Pollyanna, pie-in-the-sky denial. But there are some things, no matter if they’re true, you can’t live with them. You have to refuse them. You turn your eyes away from whatever’s squatting right there in front of you and not only pretend it isn’t there now, but that you never saw it in the first place. You do so because your soul is a frail thing that can’t stand the blast-furnace heat of revelation, and truth be damned. What else can a body do?
I LOVE that. I love reading feelings that I had have but never had the words to express that reality you know? and the book is full of that! NICE
I will admit (and where .5 deduction is coming from an otherwise 5 STARS) Part 2 takes A BIT. it took SUCH a bit I almost didn't finish the book. I glad I kept at it, soon it picked up again, and I started to absorb the setting couldn't put it down!
THEN PART 3- and this line here
His story done, Howard seemed relieved, as if that burden I’d sensed behind his words at the beginning of his tale had passed from him. I felt oddly disoriented, disconnected from the diner’s chrome and glass, the way you do after you’ve finished a book or movie in which you’ve been absorbed and which hasn’t loosened its hold on you.
IUNNO maybe I'm CORNY AF but I LIVE for that shit, being able to experience the same feelings as the main character but for a meta reality reason
Note: I do not know if that ^^ was intentional from the author. especially since part of what fuel that was me taking so long to finish Part 2-PART 2 kinda became the reason I'm reading the book? and low-key high-key forgot about the initial protagonist so when I read part 3 i got brain blast with OH YA that was being told to US and then you read that line? be serious! fucking cinema
Part 3 was everything Part 1 was, but NOW after reading lovely prose-steeped in dread.
I'm always happy when I finished a book and felt better for the experience. IT WAS GREAT.
It was a fun read. Main Character was my favorite story. I really related to bee alot, and it put words some of the feelings I had when I was at that age and being part of groups, and wanting to (heh) reject the box society so nicely place in front of me. there is a frustration that I thought was more personal but reading make me feel less alone.
It was very entertaining, and that's all I could ask for.
