zilver

???and the earth felt soft and i was above us, could see all of us from above, like i was dead and shattered about the sky with the stars looking down and i saw the way we fanned out to make a moving rope pushing itself through the grey grass??? 

had a bit of a hard time getting into this. most of the characters except mush didn???t speak to me basically at all until this picked up pace 30-40%. really missed some depth for some of the characters as well, most importantly titular kala, but also for aiofe, joe, aidan. i usually love a book where you???re dropped into a story without much context, which is sort of how the early part of this book feels, but it also felt like it was trying too hard to keep me at a distance? 

but i will say! there were also a lot of parts that spoke to me and stuck with me that could have been pretentious but edged enough towards heartfelt. 

???you knew then, in the face to face, that it had been wrong to think of aidan as a lost cause, that no one is the simple playing card you reduce them to, (???) that there???s this whole animal being to everyone and that in this animal being there???s a point where you and everyone else in the world can meet??? 

hard to explain what kind of special crack is in these books. it???s like there???s a sleeper agent in my brain that is triggered when i see the word exy. 

jean lacks rage, luckily i have it in abundance (when i catch coach moriyama they will not find his body etc etc). but i also have so much love for all the trojans and our little catlailajeremyjean squad most of all. jean giving out his first hug oh i???ll cry.

ways in which jean moreau is neil josten-coded: says yes anytime anyone asks him if he???s all right (he???s not), throws fits at fall banquets, communicates with people by watching exy games

other tidbits: jean calls andrew a fair-haired rat in narration. kevin makes a chess joke while drunk. agent browning 2/2 failed wpp attempts and OVER it. everyone on team ???get jean a hobby??? like this man is a sims expansion pack.

ALSO i cannot believe that the ravens just tried to straight up MURDER at least 3 foxes ON LIVE TV within FIVE minutes of starting their first game of the season. they are insane. okay that???s it i???m done

a BEHEMOTH of a book. truly felt like i was swallowed whole by a whale. 

this one is both less emotional but much more sad than the previous books. fitz has lost so much and loses more and more buckkeep, patience, molly, burrich, verity, all he puts in girl-on-a-dragon, his dream for a kind of a life, his drive and his ease. he is also verrrry buffy s6-coded in both a good and painful way.

nighteyes remains a star. may he live forever. and the fool!!!!! the fool<3 they are pack!!! 

nighteyes ????????????????  

i was always fond of kettricken and verity and burrich but this book made me even more so. it???s so lovely to read a slow paced book (and it really is quite slow) that still feels so intentional. as the story expands and i grow more familiar with it, it feels like a warm (painful) blanket 

3.5-4

the top two reviews of this book i think put a lot of my thoughts into words already so thank you for that, reviewers.

war of the foxes is definitely less quotable and less personal than crush. i think that???s the main reason for taking away some stars, that the thing that drew me (and, i think, many others) to crush is how personal and raw it was, how it touched me to my core with its beauty and its pain. war of the foxes is more distant and i missed the closeness i remembered from crush. but i think it???d do me good to reread this book in a little while, so i can see it as its separate entity, which is what it deserves. i have to remind myself that there were over 10 years between the publishing of crush and the publishing of war of the foxes - richard siken has clearly grown and developed himself and his poetry and his scope.

favourites: landscape with a blur of conquerors; birds hover the trampled field; landscape with several small fires; war of the foxes; ghost, zero, suitcase, and the moon, lovesong of the square root of negative one, self-portrait against red wallpaper