“I’ve tried so many ways to be normal. I just want to be myself for a little while.”
This one hit me hard.
I actually had to take a break somewhere in the middle of reading it, because some of the deep, dark, filthy, dirty stuff that Laney thinks, does, and regrets, echoed so deeply within my own soul that I had to look away for a minute to put myself back together.
This is not an easy book to read. It is not an easy book to experience. It is not an easy book to review.
“You’re the last bright thing left in this world.”
There is nothing inherently likeable about this book. There is nothing inherently enjoyable about this book either. It’s like watching a bloody car wreck, you watch these characters make horrible decisions, break people and things and destroy themselves, and yet it is so vivid you can’t bear to look away. And yet even with all this despair and destruction, there are these stunning glimpses into the human condition, love, life and this place we call the world.
“There’s something inside me that spins too fast. Sometimes it makes me crazy.”
The writing in this was positively poetic. It was incredibly evocative and brutally beautiful. There were often entire passages that were quote worthy, and hit so close to home that it often made me wonder if Leah Reader was sitting inside my brain watching the way things were working in there and transcribing what was going on.
“Falling for someone is like pulling a loose thread. It happens stitch by stitch.”
This book, simply put, is a mind fuck. It deals with depression, mental illness, sexuality and gender identity, substance abuse along with a myriad of other hard hitting and heavy topics. But it never makes light of any of them. It acknowledges how big these issues are, how broken we are, how broken the world is and paints a picture of one fractured soul trying to claw her way out of a dark hole and make herself something better and overcome the circumstances that she finds herself in.
“When you touch me it feels so cold. As if you’re touching a chess piece, thinking about your next move.”
“I am, you’re the white knight.”
There was an ominous sense of foreboding in this from the very first page, but this was a riveting read that touched me more deeply than I think I can possibly express. It’s messed up, it’s crazy, it’s stupid, it’s psychotic, it’s wonderful and I think even if it is tough to do so, it is something that everyone should experience.
“Suffering is the only honest response to this life.”
I am not giving full marks here, purely because I am not a poetry lover and sometimes found the poetry geekage a little overwhelming and this caused me to have a disconnect with this story, these characters and this world. That is my only criticism, however.
This is a book that smiles at you, while it is stabbing you in the back. It gave me all the feelings. Proceed with caution, but please, proceed.
4.5 nothing-hurts-more-than-being-alive Stars
thebookeatingdinosaur 