Sometimes I think about how different some books would be if they had been written by other authors.
For instance, if sylvia plath had written tsh it would've been in camilla's pov and everything would have been so much more unhinged. We'd get more of bunny's daddy issues and francis would've tried committing suicide back when henry told him he liked gucci.
We should cherish more little moments like baking, reading, listening or singing music, creating art, watching the rain outside through your window, noticing the colors of the sky, dancing around your house etc. These little moments is not little if we think for some minutes.
a deeper analysis of richard making out with francis (because what else am i supposed to do?)
to set the scene, this is hours after the Greek class kills bunny. francis shows up in richard’s dorm room, sick of being alone. richard, still dizzy and dazed from the Demerol judy had given him, goes up to his bureau to grab something. as he does, francis swoops up behind him. and bam. gay stuff.
richard — as he says — isn’t into francis and is apparently straight. now let’s say he is. he claims in his narration that he made out with francis out of impulse, reflex, and nothing more. now if this is true this goes to show richard’s willingness to go through with anything at all, no matter how against his true behavior and nature, for and with the Greek class.
he’s so succumbed into the world of these students that he will go as far as to completely erasing himself in order to comply with whatever they are doing. he may not even REALIZE, but he just goes along with everything they do, never questioning it, even if his own ideas are put at the coffin. this is proven through out the story, but this kissing scene was just an example.
OR of course richard is just gay for francis (pls yes) and i’m over analyzing. but can anyone ever over analyze tsh?! i think not.
with that, i lay my analysis down and out.
The way that in the starless sea, the books are never mentioned as being inside a "library", they're always said to be inside the "Harbor". As if stories and books are something safe and protect you from stormy seas and they feel like home and they're always a destination that you can go to and call your own. The stories themselves are the Harbor and I think that's so sweet and soft
"And you became like the coffee, in the deliciousness, and the bitterness and the addiction".
-Mahmoud Darwish
also why did it take me this long to realize the night circus is completely black and white because. it’s marco and celia’s chessboard
“Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”
Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist.
TW: Rape, Abuse
Photo Link: Echo Wang
Why I dislike Colleen Hoover : The decline of reading critically
Colleen Hoover is an American author who rose to fame after her books got popular on “Book Tok.” Book Tok is a “side” of tik tok that reads and reviews books. Her most popular novels are November 9, Ugly Love, Verity and It ends with us. Personally I’ve only read It ends with us, but from excerpts of her novels I don’t plan on reading them.
Anna Todd is a popular fanfic author who wrote the infamous After series. So popular it got picked up for…. How many movies? Too many. (4) Anna and Colleen both have two things in common. Both terrible popular writers who romanticize and write hard topics beyond their writing skills.
Even though my dislike for her is strong, there are a few things that I think she has accomplished. She became a popular known-romance author. Her novels are easily accessible because of the simplicity of them. I can admit that! I believe that readers of Colleen Hoover should develop better reading comprehension skills.
I feel so strongly about my dislike of Colleen Hoover because I’ve read many, many romances. I’m a very picky romance reader. I can’t stand abusive, toxic, possessive men. Why would I want to surround myself around men like that? Now my preference strongly influences my dislike but not fully. Colleen Hoover doesn’t believe in Trigger warnings. Trigger warnings aren’t new, but to the modern political world people don’t need them! But here's the thing, Colleen Hoover doesn’t use them! Despite her constant use of rape, abuse, violence in almost all of her novels. Now this is debatable, why would this be bad? Because she believes it “Spoils” the story. Telling me that she uses these real life traumas solely on plot twists. If you look at most of her reviews from stans most will say they LOVED the plot twists. That is what Collen Hoover is, a “Romance” writer who writes rape as a plot twists. These characters do have “Happy Endings.” Spoiler for november 9 : She gets with the guy who burned her house down. Caused the burn damage on her skin and killed her mother in the fire. If that’s not a meet cute, I don’t know what is.
Colleen Hoover also included a rape scene in her novel November 9. Later apologizing and having it removed from the novel. She later deleted her apology from facebook and never spoke about it again. Now this is relevant to Colleen Hoover’s character. When a girl online spoke about the sexual assault against her son, Colleen Hoover blocked the girl and continued to defend her son. Now of course not everything on the internet is true, but with the way she writes men makes me wonder how she views men. She also markets her novels as romance.
Is simplistic writing bad? Of course not, simple language is what gets people reading. Most people wouldn’t read if they started with Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
I don’t hate Colleen Hoover fans, or the younger teenage girls for enjoying it. I just wish that the romance genre, although dominated by women, was less misogynistic and saw female characters as true, fleshed out characters. I believe that Colleen Hoover could improve the quality of her craft and her writing, by not calling her novels “Romance” and picking up a dictionary once in a while.
I think the moral of this story is that not all popular writers are good, some just get lucky.
The true blasphemy of literature is the romanticization of romance. They make it beautiful—all soft words, and elegant lines—and enchanting, with magic sparkling in the margins.
And you can feel it in the depths of your soul, an unexplored ocean of laughter and tears and dreams all melded together.
The yearning of a kiss that brushes against the steady and so so warm pulsing beat of life—against the smooth skin of a lovers neck. The desperation to touch another being and feel that they’re alive, right there next to you—right there, and never leaving.
To love and be loved is a jewel among treasures and all that we each seek—all that we each desire.
It burns and it burns and it burns.
“I would know him in death, at the end of the world.”
“Come home and break my heart, if you must.”
“Occasionally, Fate pulls itself together again and Time is always waiting.”
“And perhaps it is the greatest grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone.”
“By you, I am forever undone.”
“One word from you shall silence me forever.”
“A heart’s a heavy burden.”
“My sweet nemesis.”
“If you have to go, you know I will go with you.”
and then?
and then.
The book is over.
And you remember that love like that doesn't exist.
Not in the real world.
And all you can do is cry.
"I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot explain it to myself."
- Franz Kafka