A Theory of Dreaming (A Study in Drowning, #2)

by Ava Reid

And take that uniform for your compatriot.” His lips stretched into a resplendent smile. “You may need to let it out in the bust.”

Eww

In the second chamber, Effy’s statue still stood, in its place of preeminence. The crack on her face had been mended, and Preston was so relieved to see it that his knees grew weak beneath him. He dropped to the floor again—because the great beauty and the great stillness of her form deserved worship, devotion. Here, she was a princess, a queen, perhaps even a saint.

The most down bad a man could be

“Perhaps you shouldn’t dress like this. What do you expect two red-blooded males to do? I’ve half a mind to report you to Dean Fogg, too.”

Effy can't breathe without a man blaming her or objectifying her

The sickness has spared me, for now, but I feel that I live on borrowed time. I go to my father at night, and, even blind—the fever has robbed him of his sight—he seems to know and desire every contour of my form.

Eww

Did her agony at her father’s hand not matter at all? Was it possible for her pain to coexist with the great art it had produced? Was there any way to protect books, poems, paintings from the ugly, banal reality in which they were composed?

“It doesn’t matter. I was just curious.” His grip

He better tell her at some point

If you can learn to love that which despises you, that which terrifies you, you can dance on the shore and play in the waves again, like you did when you were young. Before the ocean is friend or foe, it simply is. And so are you.