Simple and complex in the same breath. Whenever you wonder what it takes to be human, turn to this.
P.S. Given that the name Harper is makingMy Review
Simple and complex in the same breath. Whenever you wonder what it takes to be human, turn to this.
P.S. Given that the name Harper is making a comeback, Calpurnia, Jem, Dill & Atticus should also be given some serious consideration.
Favorite Quotes
Summer was on the way; Jem and I awaited it with impatience. Summer was our best season; it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape; but most of all, summer was Dill.
Naw, Jem, I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.
[Atticus' closing remarks to the jury. Bawl.]
He put on his hat. "Now I may be wrong, of course, but I think he's very alive. Shows all the symptoms of it. Go have a look at him, and when I come back we'll get together and decide.
I want to read every novel Rainbow Rowell has ever written. Oh, wait. I just did. Damnit, hurry up and publish Landline already!
Favorite QuoMy Reviews
I want to read every novel Rainbow Rowell has ever written. Oh, wait. I just did. Damnit, hurry up and publish Landline already!
Favorite Quotes
There's a chill in the air that lifts my heart and makes my hair stand on end. Every moment feels meant for me. In October, I'm the star of my own movie...October, baptize me with leaves! Swaddle me in corduroy and nurse me with split pea soup. October, tuck tiny candy bars in my pockets and carve my smile into a thousand pumpkins.
[p136-7 = one of the best explanations of a breakup, ever]
It's always weird to go from my mom to Mitch. It doesn't seem like I should have been able to get to this life from my old one, like there aren't even roads between those two places.
She laughed. It was better than he could have imagined. Like a giggle falling off its chair.
I didn't know love could leave the lights on all the time...I thought it took more naps...Or blinked. I didn't know it could just go on and on like this without falling off an edge.
Well, shit. This book was just about perfect in every way. Except for the excessive use of the term of endearment "sweet pea", but I'll forgiMy Review
Well, shit. This book was just about perfect in every way. Except for the excessive use of the term of endearment "sweet pea", but I'll forgive it.
Recommended reading for fans of StoryCorps, or you know, all humans.
Favorite Quotes
The best thing you can possibly do with your life is to tackle the motherfucking shit out of love.
You're in a pickle. You did things you didn't hope to do. You have not always been your best self. This means that you're like the rest.
Because no matter how experimental he is, his life isn't an experiment.
When bad things happen, often the only way back to wholeness is to take it all apart.
Acceptance asks only that you embrace what's true.
Even if you get the dream, you don't know if it will stay true.
Jump high and hard with intention and heart.
That both things could be true at once--my disbelief as well as my certainty--was the unification of the ancient and the future parts of me. It was everything I intended and yet still I was surprised by what I got.
Whatever happens to you belongs to you. Make it yours. Feed it to yourself even if it feels impossible to swallow. Let it nurture you, because it will. I have learned this over and over and over again.
Nobody's going to do your life for you.
What do you do when you don't know what to do about something? I talk to Mr. Sugar and my friends. I make lists. I attempt to analyze the situation from the perspective of my "best self"--the one that's generous, reasonable, forgiving, loving, bighearted, and grateful. I think really hard about what I'll wish I did a year from now. I map out the consequences of the various actions I could take. I ask what my motivations are, what my desires are, what my fears are, what I have to lose, and what I have to gain. I move toward the light, even if it's a hard direction in which to move. I trust myself. I keep the faith. I mess up sometimes.
I'll never know, and neither will you of the life you don't choose. We'll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn't carry us. There's nothing to do but salute it from the shore.
This is how you get unstuck...You reach. Not so you can walk away from the daughter you loved, but so you can live the life that is yours--the one that includes the sad loss of your daughter, but is not arrested by it. The one that eventually leads you to a place in which you not only grieve her, but also feel lucky to have had the privilege of loving her....more
"I need someone," thought Francie desperately. "I need someone. I need to hold somebody close. And I need more than this holding. I nFavorite Quotes:
"I need someone," thought Francie desperately. "I need someone. I need to hold somebody close. And I need more than this holding. I need someone to understand how I feel at a time like now. And the understanding must be part of the holding. I love mama and Neeley and Laurie. But I need someone to love in a different way than I love them."
"She went out and took a last long look at the shabby little library. She knew she would never see it again. Eyes changed after they looked at new things. If in the years to be, she were to come back, her new eyes might make everything seem different from the way she saw it now. The way it was now was the way she wanted to remember it."
"When Francie added a sum, she would fix a little story to go with the result. If the answer was 924, it meant that the little boy and girl were being minded by company while the rest of the family went out. When a number such as 1024 appeared, it meant that all the little children were playing together in the yard."...more
Jules reminded me of this. What a great reading experience I had with this one. I stayed up all night and read it straight through, watching the sun rJules reminded me of this. What a great reading experience I had with this one. I stayed up all night and read it straight through, watching the sun rise from my reading nook. I think that is the only time I've ever done that with a book. (If you don't know, I am a slowwwww reader.)...more
I'm itching to re-read this one. It's one of the few repeats I allow myself in a world overflowing with books. I'm itching to re-read this one. It's one of the few repeats I allow myself in a world overflowing with books. ...more
The ability of the author to convince me of an epic love within a matter of pages was thoroughly impressive. I loved this book from beginning to end.
The ability of the author to convince me of an epic love within a matter of pages was thoroughly impressive.
Time travel books can usually fall into two pitfalls: lack of character development and/or too much focus on the hows and whys of time travel. This book avoided both. The story unfolds artfully, giving you just enough information at every point to force you to look forward and backward in time to piece everything together.
If you can tell by reading my past reviews, I have a slight obsession with the idea of memory. And this book didn't let me down. Henry's ability to time travel is mostly based on memory and his own experiences in life. I was afraid there was going to be a lot of "shock value" time travel, forcing Henry to be in random places to witness famous events or meet famous people. Instead, you spend the entire book immersed in Henry and Clare's love for each other.
My favorite quotes (with the disclaimer that the whole is much much greater than the parts):
"[S]ome people, me included, believe that punk is just the most recent manifestation of this, this spirit, this feeling, you know, that things aren't right and that in fact things are so wrong that the only thing we can do is to say Fuck It, over and over again, really loud, until someone stops us."
"I dream that Clare and I are walking through a museum...We look at the paintings, but they aren't really paintings, they're poems, poems somehow given physical manifestation. 'Look,' I say to Clare, 'there's an Emily Dickinson,' The heart asks pleasure first: And then excuse from pain... She stands in front of the bright yellow poem and seems to warm herself by it...she is standing before a poem, a tiny white poem tucked into a corner. She is weeping. As I come up behind her I see the poem: Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.
Love After Love
The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookself,
the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.
-Derek Walcott (poem at beginning of book) ...more
One of my top 5 favorite books of all time. I think it's about time for another reading. Like going to the doctor, one should visit Winnie every one tOne of my top 5 favorite books of all time. I think it's about time for another reading. Like going to the doctor, one should visit Winnie every one to two years to ensure good mental health. ...more
I mean, I could say it's not perfect. But it kind of is.
Favorite QuotReview from July 2007
The perfect end to an epic series.
Review from October 2014
I mean, I could say it's not perfect. But it kind of is.
Favorite Quotes
It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well....more
I give this 5 stars, BUT there is a disclaimer: If you want a fast read, this book is not for you. If you only like happy endings this book is not forI give this 5 stars, BUT there is a disclaimer: If you want a fast read, this book is not for you. If you only like happy endings this book is not for you. If you don't like experimental fiction, this book is not for you.
If you love to read and if you love to care about the characters you read about and if you love to eat words like they're ice cream and if you love to have your heart broken and mended on the same page, this book is for you.
This story is narrated by Death during World War II, and it is the story of a young German girl who comes of age during one of the most horrific times in recent history. Death has a personality. If something bad is about to happen, Death warns you ahead of time. My favorite part is when "he" stomps on a framed picture of Hitler on his way to retrieve a thousand souls from a bomb raid. Death is trying to understand the human race as much as the humans are. When "his" job becomes unbearable, he watches the color of the sky as he gathers the souls and carries them away. The descriptions of the sky are like nothing I've ever read.
A few quotes: In years to come, he would be a giver of bread, not a stealer - proof again of the contradictory human being. So much good, so much evil. Just add water. p.164
The town that afternoon was covered in a yellow mist, which stroked the rooftops as if they were pets and filled up the streets like a bath. p.247
He was more a black suit than a man. His face was a mustache. p.413
He does something to me, that boy. Every time. It's his only detriment. he steps on my heart. He makes me cry. p.531
There was once a strange, small man. He decided three important details about his life: 1. He would part his hair from the opposite side to everyone else. 2. He would make himself a small, strange mustache. 3. He would one day rule the world. ...Yes, the Fuhrer decided that he would rule the world with words. p.445
Paired with She Got Up Off the Couch, these are two irreplaceable memoirs about growing up in small town Indiana. Kimmel’s quirkAn all-time favorite.
Paired with She Got Up Off the Couch, these are two irreplaceable memoirs about growing up in small town Indiana. Kimmel’s quirkiness is endearing as she takes on such challenges as eating an entire bag of carrots and raising a pet chicken. Never have snippets of memories seemed so ethereal.
The best English mystery/ fiction novel I've ever read! There is a lot of twin lore going around recently, and this does nothing but add to the fantasThe best English mystery/ fiction novel I've ever read! There is a lot of twin lore going around recently, and this does nothing but add to the fantasy. An extremely well crafted tale.
Favorite Quotes:
All children mythologize their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won’t be the truth; it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story.
I never read without making sure I am in a secure position. I have been like this ever since the age of seven when, sitting on a high wall and reading The Water Babies, I was so seduced by the descriptions of underwater life that I unconsciously relaxed my muscles. Instead of being held buoyant by the water that so vividly surrounded me in my mind, I plummeted to the ground and knocked myself out…Reading can be dangerous.”
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