Hannah
Nice story written with a lot of love, but a bit too cutesy for me. If you’ve read an Emily Henry and thought “I loved it but I wish it had EVEN MORE witty dialogue”, you’d probably love this book
Nice story written with a lot of love, but a bit too cutesy for me. If you’ve read an Emily Henry and thought “I loved it but I wish it had EVEN MORE witty dialogue”, you’d probably love this book
Answered a promptWhat book are you still thinking about?
Wallis covers this story thoroughly and with heart, reviewing everything from the first inklings of an issue with Horizon to the massive cover up and court cases that followed while still taking the time to focus on the individuals who were so profoundly impacted by the frankly evil actions of the post office. As we proceed into a new age of AI, I think this is a really important cautionary tale of what happens when we blindly trust technology to be the judge, jury, and executioner without the protections of human verification.
Wallis covers this story thoroughly and with heart, reviewing everything from the first inklings of an issue with Horizon to the massive cover up and court cases that followed while still taking the time to focus on the individuals who were so profoundly impacted by the frankly evil actions of the post office. As we proceed into a new age of AI, I think this is a really important cautionary tale of what happens when we blindly trust technology to be the judge, jury, and executioner without the protections of human verification.
This is an extremely difficult read emotionally. Jackson builds the world and characters in bright colors then takes you along step by step with every heartbreak and dismissal and desperate action that Claudia takes to try and find her missing friend. My heart broke every time Claudia's concerns were dismissed, I was so mad at every adult in this book for their inaction and so devastated for all the children hurt because of it - Claudia and Monday and April and the real stories Jackson based this novel on where kids had no one to advocate for them. The conclusion had me crying in public on a park bench.
Outside of the subject matter, Claudia herself is such a lovable character. I loved the way she viewed her relationships with others through colors. Her dyslexia is integrated so perfectly through the slow improvement of her journal entries to Monday versus the final "voice" of the future Claudia narrating the novel.
If Monday were a color, she'd be red. Crisp, striking, vivid, you couldn't miss her - a bullseye in the room, a crackling flame. I saw so much red that it blinded me to any flags
This is an extremely difficult read emotionally. Jackson builds the world and characters in bright colors then takes you along step by step with every heartbreak and dismissal and desperate action that Claudia takes to try and find her missing friend. My heart broke every time Claudia's concerns were dismissed, I was so mad at every adult in this book for their inaction and so devastated for all the children hurt because of it - Claudia and Monday and April and the real stories Jackson based this novel on where kids had no one to advocate for them. The conclusion had me crying in public on a park bench.
Outside of the subject matter, Claudia herself is such a lovable character. I loved the way she viewed her relationships with others through colors. Her dyslexia is integrated so perfectly through the slow improvement of her journal entries to Monday versus the final "voice" of the future Claudia narrating the novel.
If Monday were a color, she'd be red. Crisp, striking, vivid, you couldn't miss her - a bullseye in the room, a crackling flame. I saw so much red that it blinded me to any flags
Margo is an icon with a truly unique voice and story that somehow managed to be both ridiculous (wrestler father, OnlyFans, Pokemon dick poetry) and incredibly genuine at its essence. I laughed out loud every other page, frequently had to put the book down out of anxiety for the very stressful situations Margo found herself in, and felt deep affection for Margo, her baby, her father, her roommate - basically everyone except her mother and Kevin who both suck.
Margo's story is particularly powerful because it provides an understandable backstory and humanization of the often judgemental tone behind "How did she get here?" We fall into the life of this intelligent, clever, funny woman who ends up monetizing sex because it is the only option left to her. The author shows how alone she is, how she is expected to be a single mother and have no child care and support them both financially, leaving you to question right along with Margo what the hell else she is supposed to do.
"She felt incredibly stupid for believing him, for having the affair with him, for having a uterus"
"She kept thinking, as she nursed him, I am so fucked, I am so fucked, I am so fucked. Because all around her she could feel the echoey space of no one caring about her or worrying about her or helping her. She might as well have been nursing this baby on an abandoned space station."
"It seemed improbable that men really wanted sex this badly, and yet they did, there was an entire economy based on how badly they wanted it, and for a moment Margo understood the sexual desire she felt was mild in comparison. She would never pay fifteen dollars to look at a guy naked. You could buy two, possibly three sandwiches for fifteen dollars."
Margo and her father working together on scripts and production was strangely heartwarming, and also further revealed the creativity and potential Margo has if someone would just let her catch a break. She takes the porn industry which one may consider shallow in meaning and makes it quotable.
"Give me your boredom and your sadness and your anxiety: I will eat it all. I will eat the buttons off your shirt, your darkest secrets, your keys, locks of your hair, your memories. Come play with me in a world we make up together. I will only kill you a little bit, and you will like it."
Her father is much more lovable than her mother, who represents the internalized belief that (1) you must be loved to survive (2) in order to be loved, you must adhere to the idealized form of femininity upheld by the men who gift you with love and (3) sacrifice anything that may upset this fiction. However, he still doesn't end up being what Margo ultimately can rely on. Neither does the hint of romance serve as Margo's finale. As a complete opposite to the situation her mother ends up in, Margo reframes love from a rescue to something that you can generate for yourself.
"Love was not something, I realized, that came to you from the outside. I had always thought that love was supposed to come from other people, and somehow, I was failing to catch the crumbs of it, failing to eat them, and I went around belly empty and desperate. I didn't know that love was supposed to come from within me, and that as long as I loved others, the strength and warmth of that love would fill me, make me strong."
My one struggle with this book was the ending, the final detour into a business idea with JB, who I could care less about, felt emotionally unsatisfying compared to the rest of the story.
Margo is an icon with a truly unique voice and story that somehow managed to be both ridiculous (wrestler father, OnlyFans, Pokemon dick poetry) and incredibly genuine at its essence. I laughed out loud every other page, frequently had to put the book down out of anxiety for the very stressful situations Margo found herself in, and felt deep affection for Margo, her baby, her father, her roommate - basically everyone except her mother and Kevin who both suck.
Margo's story is particularly powerful because it provides an understandable backstory and humanization of the often judgemental tone behind "How did she get here?" We fall into the life of this intelligent, clever, funny woman who ends up monetizing sex because it is the only option left to her. The author shows how alone she is, how she is expected to be a single mother and have no child care and support them both financially, leaving you to question right along with Margo what the hell else she is supposed to do.
"She felt incredibly stupid for believing him, for having the affair with him, for having a uterus"
"She kept thinking, as she nursed him, I am so fucked, I am so fucked, I am so fucked. Because all around her she could feel the echoey space of no one caring about her or worrying about her or helping her. She might as well have been nursing this baby on an abandoned space station."
"It seemed improbable that men really wanted sex this badly, and yet they did, there was an entire economy based on how badly they wanted it, and for a moment Margo understood the sexual desire she felt was mild in comparison. She would never pay fifteen dollars to look at a guy naked. You could buy two, possibly three sandwiches for fifteen dollars."
Margo and her father working together on scripts and production was strangely heartwarming, and also further revealed the creativity and potential Margo has if someone would just let her catch a break. She takes the porn industry which one may consider shallow in meaning and makes it quotable.
"Give me your boredom and your sadness and your anxiety: I will eat it all. I will eat the buttons off your shirt, your darkest secrets, your keys, locks of your hair, your memories. Come play with me in a world we make up together. I will only kill you a little bit, and you will like it."
Her father is much more lovable than her mother, who represents the internalized belief that (1) you must be loved to survive (2) in order to be loved, you must adhere to the idealized form of femininity upheld by the men who gift you with love and (3) sacrifice anything that may upset this fiction. However, he still doesn't end up being what Margo ultimately can rely on. Neither does the hint of romance serve as Margo's finale. As a complete opposite to the situation her mother ends up in, Margo reframes love from a rescue to something that you can generate for yourself.
"Love was not something, I realized, that came to you from the outside. I had always thought that love was supposed to come from other people, and somehow, I was failing to catch the crumbs of it, failing to eat them, and I went around belly empty and desperate. I didn't know that love was supposed to come from within me, and that as long as I loved others, the strength and warmth of that love would fill me, make me strong."
My one struggle with this book was the ending, the final detour into a business idea with JB, who I could care less about, felt emotionally unsatisfying compared to the rest of the story.