Hannah
I was really looking forward to this release by the author of my favorite 2024 romance read, Lovelight Farm. The dialogue had a witty vibe and the sexual tension in that tiny recording room was 10/10. But the slow burn aspect felt forced and had my least favorite motivation - flimsy internal conflict. There was absolutely no real reason why they couldn't be together, yet the entire book he ruins everything by being the "I'm just not made for love!" type. There were so many different external reasons that could've felt more real for slow burn purposes! What if the radio show owner had forbidden him from getting involved because they needed her out date to keep up the ratings? I would have immediately been less annoyed and more invested.
I was really looking forward to this release by the author of my favorite 2024 romance read, Lovelight Farm. The dialogue had a witty vibe and the sexual tension in that tiny recording room was 10/10. But the slow burn aspect felt forced and had my least favorite motivation - flimsy internal conflict. There was absolutely no real reason why they couldn't be together, yet the entire book he ruins everything by being the "I'm just not made for love!" type. There were so many different external reasons that could've felt more real for slow burn purposes! What if the radio show owner had forbidden him from getting involved because they needed her out date to keep up the ratings? I would have immediately been less annoyed and more invested.
I was not familiar with the name Frances Perkins when I started this audiobook, but found myself falling in love with this piece of historical fiction. It digs into the very real accomplishments of the first female member of a presidential cabinet. Perkins was the longest serving Secretary of Labor, an architect of the 40-hour work week and Social Security, a drafter of child labor bans, and an advocate for aiding Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. The novel dips into fictions to imagine Perkin's personal life - what she must've been thinking while battling through a majority male government to fight for working class rights.
I finished this book with immense respect for Frances Perkins, and for FDR, who broke gender conventions by empowering her to fundamentally change our country.
'Why economics?', I echoed gamely. 'Because many people in American believe poverty is a moral problem having to do with sloth or some other sin we can blame on individuals. But I believe poverty in America is an economic problem that can be solved...and I intend to solve it.'
Social security - which was expanded again and again to cover more Americans of every race and creed - is now so much a part of American psychology that I truly believe no politician, political party, or political group can possibly destroy it and maintain a democratic system. I suppose I should also be grateful that the reforms I fought for are bricks so firmly embedded in the edifice of national life that Americans now take them for granted.
I was not familiar with the name Frances Perkins when I started this audiobook, but found myself falling in love with this piece of historical fiction. It digs into the very real accomplishments of the first female member of a presidential cabinet. Perkins was the longest serving Secretary of Labor, an architect of the 40-hour work week and Social Security, a drafter of child labor bans, and an advocate for aiding Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. The novel dips into fictions to imagine Perkin's personal life - what she must've been thinking while battling through a majority male government to fight for working class rights.
I finished this book with immense respect for Frances Perkins, and for FDR, who broke gender conventions by empowering her to fundamentally change our country.
'Why economics?', I echoed gamely. 'Because many people in American believe poverty is a moral problem having to do with sloth or some other sin we can blame on individuals. But I believe poverty in America is an economic problem that can be solved...and I intend to solve it.'
Social security - which was expanded again and again to cover more Americans of every race and creed - is now so much a part of American psychology that I truly believe no politician, political party, or political group can possibly destroy it and maintain a democratic system. I suppose I should also be grateful that the reforms I fought for are bricks so firmly embedded in the edifice of national life that Americans now take them for granted.
It took me awhile to get hooked into this story. The writing is slow, lyrical, and purely vibes at the beginning. We're wandering endless halls full of oceans and statues with very little idea of what is going on. Once the plot is added into this visually stimulating setting, I was completely hooked and finished the book during one flight.
The world and characters are vivid with a dash of mystery. The culty subplot slowly leaked through journal entries was so well written. Clark is skillful at inspiring both horror and beauty and making you feel like you're floating through all her worlds.
The House is valuable because it is the House. It is enough in and of itself. It is not a means to an end.
It took me awhile to get hooked into this story. The writing is slow, lyrical, and purely vibes at the beginning. We're wandering endless halls full of oceans and statues with very little idea of what is going on. Once the plot is added into this visually stimulating setting, I was completely hooked and finished the book during one flight.
The world and characters are vivid with a dash of mystery. The culty subplot slowly leaked through journal entries was so well written. Clark is skillful at inspiring both horror and beauty and making you feel like you're floating through all her worlds.
The House is valuable because it is the House. It is enough in and of itself. It is not a means to an end.
The Secret History captured me immediately with it's opening line.
The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.
This one sentence captures the magic of the novel itself - lyrical but with a strong sense of place that doesn't distance itself from the action. I was also surprised by the absolutely wild plot and the intense set of characters who slowly disintegrate like a slow burn thriller. I honestly went in expecting something slightly boring and pretentious. The most pulse racing aspect of this is not fast, it is patient. The murders have happened, the culprits have gotten away. Then we spend the latter half of the book observing the slow psychological decline of all involved while the rose-colored glasses are removed from our eyes. The beautiful charming twins become an incest-filled pattern of abuse, the brilliant leader is an psychopathic cliche with grandiose tendencies who poisons dogs (the bastard), the enigmatic professor is just a coward who enabled his students to feel entitled to murder. This descent merges in interesting ways with lectures from said professor and kicked off a lot of pondering for me on aesthetic academics and the psychological impact of feeling that you exist in a sphere above the common folk.
Why does that obstinate little voice in our heads torment us so?...Could it be because it reminds us that we are alive, of our mortality, of our individual souls- which, after all, we are too afraid to surrender but yet make us feel more miserable than any other thing? But isn't it also pain that often makes us most aware of self? It is a terrible thing to learn as a child that one is a being separate from all the world, that no one and nothing hurts along with one's burned tongues and skimmed knees, that one's aches and pains are all one's own...Our own selves make us most unhappy, and that's why we're so anxious to lose them, don't you think?"
In my view, Richard remained the only slightly sympathetic character because his own poverty and the peek into his home situation reveal the desperation that led him to tolerate and assist in his new rich friends' horrible actions. Even the reader initially falls into the dream with him - a life where all his friends graduate together and live together forever in that nice country home where nothing ever changes. Only he seems to internally struggle both during and after Bunny's murder, to him Bunny was part of that dream.
I forgave him, a hundred times over, and never on the basis of anything more than this: a look, a gesture, a certain tilt of his head. Is seemed impossible then that one could ever be angry with him. These were the times he chose to attack...I would vow not to forget it again. I broke that promise many times. I was about to say it was a promise I finally had to keep, but that's not really true. Even today, I can't muster anything resembling anger at Bunny. In fact, I can't think of much I'd like better than for him to step into the room right now, glasses fogged and smelling of damp wool, shaking the rain from his hair... saying "Dickie my boy, what you got for a thirsty old man to drink tonight?"
I was struck with a black, incredulous horror, which is fact was not at all unlike the horror I had felt at 12..."who is in control here?" I thought, dismayed. Who is flying this plane?
The gist of all this is that being able to quote text in Greek and Latin doesn't excuse you from living a moral life or put you above the constraints of society. Even if you get away with this breaking of moral boundaries, you cannot escape from yourself: "I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell."
The Secret History captured me immediately with it's opening line.
The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.
This one sentence captures the magic of the novel itself - lyrical but with a strong sense of place that doesn't distance itself from the action. I was also surprised by the absolutely wild plot and the intense set of characters who slowly disintegrate like a slow burn thriller. I honestly went in expecting something slightly boring and pretentious. The most pulse racing aspect of this is not fast, it is patient. The murders have happened, the culprits have gotten away. Then we spend the latter half of the book observing the slow psychological decline of all involved while the rose-colored glasses are removed from our eyes. The beautiful charming twins become an incest-filled pattern of abuse, the brilliant leader is an psychopathic cliche with grandiose tendencies who poisons dogs (the bastard), the enigmatic professor is just a coward who enabled his students to feel entitled to murder. This descent merges in interesting ways with lectures from said professor and kicked off a lot of pondering for me on aesthetic academics and the psychological impact of feeling that you exist in a sphere above the common folk.
Why does that obstinate little voice in our heads torment us so?...Could it be because it reminds us that we are alive, of our mortality, of our individual souls- which, after all, we are too afraid to surrender but yet make us feel more miserable than any other thing? But isn't it also pain that often makes us most aware of self? It is a terrible thing to learn as a child that one is a being separate from all the world, that no one and nothing hurts along with one's burned tongues and skimmed knees, that one's aches and pains are all one's own...Our own selves make us most unhappy, and that's why we're so anxious to lose them, don't you think?"
In my view, Richard remained the only slightly sympathetic character because his own poverty and the peek into his home situation reveal the desperation that led him to tolerate and assist in his new rich friends' horrible actions. Even the reader initially falls into the dream with him - a life where all his friends graduate together and live together forever in that nice country home where nothing ever changes. Only he seems to internally struggle both during and after Bunny's murder, to him Bunny was part of that dream.
I forgave him, a hundred times over, and never on the basis of anything more than this: a look, a gesture, a certain tilt of his head. Is seemed impossible then that one could ever be angry with him. These were the times he chose to attack...I would vow not to forget it again. I broke that promise many times. I was about to say it was a promise I finally had to keep, but that's not really true. Even today, I can't muster anything resembling anger at Bunny. In fact, I can't think of much I'd like better than for him to step into the room right now, glasses fogged and smelling of damp wool, shaking the rain from his hair... saying "Dickie my boy, what you got for a thirsty old man to drink tonight?"
I was struck with a black, incredulous horror, which is fact was not at all unlike the horror I had felt at 12..."who is in control here?" I thought, dismayed. Who is flying this plane?
The gist of all this is that being able to quote text in Greek and Latin doesn't excuse you from living a moral life or put you above the constraints of society. Even if you get away with this breaking of moral boundaries, you cannot escape from yourself: "I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell."
I trust T. Kingfisher to tell a good story, I think only she could tell me "I'm about to tell you a story about the evil god of road runners" and have me nodding along. The world building here was lovely, the desert community with it's oddly named homes and even odder people formed a place I fell in love with. I will now fantasize about the idea of running away to a small desert town that just gives you a house and lets you putter around your garden all day (minus the scorpions and the black widows).
C'mon padre, doesn't the lord promise something about floods?
He promised not to destroy the world. Individuals are still expected to get to high ground.
I trust T. Kingfisher to tell a good story, I think only she could tell me "I'm about to tell you a story about the evil god of road runners" and have me nodding along. The world building here was lovely, the desert community with it's oddly named homes and even odder people formed a place I fell in love with. I will now fantasize about the idea of running away to a small desert town that just gives you a house and lets you putter around your garden all day (minus the scorpions and the black widows).
C'mon padre, doesn't the lord promise something about floods?
He promised not to destroy the world. Individuals are still expected to get to high ground.
Great writing and concept, but the way the relationship with Mel was allowed to trail off with a hint of future emotional infidelity was a real trigger for me
Great writing and concept, but the way the relationship with Mel was allowed to trail off with a hint of future emotional infidelity was a real trigger for me
