More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
If you look closely enough at anything, patterns will emerge.
She had taken off her clothes earlier because they were sweaty, but now she pulled them back on, shimmying into her damp leggings and long-sleeved shirt.
Ew
Maybe she had needed to step away from the book for seven years in order to see the most obvious clue, the one typed on its very first page.
lol wut
She scrolled down to “Extracts from the text” and read:
Im not reADING this
And as she read, the contours of her father’s story revealed themselves. And she finally understood how it ended.
Tea
they told each other how they felt. Aubrey has ruined everything. Maya is on her way to the library, walking down First Street, passing another church. She’ll arrive just as Frank gets off work. She knows that showing up at his job may seem desperate, but how else is she supposed to reach him? She still doesn’t understand why he was so upset that she had told Aubrey about the cabin.
Maya is a red herring and will kill aubrey
“I just went to pick up a book,” Aubrey says. “He recommended it to me yesterday—told me I should come pick it up.” She holds up the book, a hardcover with a daguerreotype of what looks like a magician on its front. The magician wears a long black tailcoat. “That’s right,” Frank says. “I told her about a book I thought she’d like, and I lent it to her. I work at a library. It’s what I do. And because I was leaving, we walked over here for a coffee.” “Whatever,” Maya says. “I don’t care.” But the words come out bitter, and Aubrey looks away. Dunkin’ Donuts is quiet, the only other customers a
...more
Omg
The library book was just an excuse to see me again.” Maya clenches her jaw. She can see that Aubrey doesn’t like telling her this. She’s not saying it to be hurtful, and that look on her face—the one Maya had mistaken for remorse—is actually pity. Aubrey feels sorry for her. And this is so much worse. They’ve had disagreements over the years, but until now, neither has truly wounded the other. “Oh, please,” Maya spits. “You showed up at my house all”—how to say this?—“dressed up when you knew he would be there.”
“I wanted to know what his deal was,” she says. “You’ve been acting weird since you met him, and now I can see why. He’s weird, Maya. He’s controlling. And if I had to guess, I’d say he was the one who suggested you defer at BU?”
Ok vigilante shit again
Dawn sprang in like lions through the windows.
?????
The trip had been organized by a group affiliated with the church she’d opted out of as soon as opting out had been an option.
Ope what
Jairo waited until everyone slept, then brought his typewriter to the roof, where the sound wouldn’t wake anyone. Or so he had thought.
Ok ratty
Aubrey’s words simmer in Maya’s head as she walks home. She’s so distracted that she steps in front of a car as it pulls out of a gas station. The
The switching timelines is cheap and uncreative
“Oh, somewhere out back.” Somewhere out back? “He’s at his cabin?” This question seems to catch him off guard. Then his surprise gives way to a smile that is chillingly like his son’s but without the warmth, and it’s like the difference between laughing with someone and laughing at them. “Yeah,” he says. “I suppose that’s where he is.” “How do I get there?” She tries to sound confident, but Frank’s dad makes her nervous. “To the cabin? You’d have to walk there, and it’s dark out.” “I know,” she says. But even mostly covered, the full moon is bright and there’s a small flashlight on her mom’s
...more
The fragrant steam rising from her bowl tickles her nose, distracting and enticing, and she thinks about how she had, after all, been thinking about deferring at BU.
Drugged
“If you go to Frank’s cabin, I mean. I know you didn’t ask for my opinion, but if I were you, I’d stay away from that place.”
Contradictory. Boring chapter
but now they bring back the smell of Frank’s cabin—his soup, the fire, the cold night air—so
Dead how its always the smell of soup or stew
Aubrey was right. She’d mistrusted him from the start. Which is probably—Maya suddenly realizes—why she wore the red dress: to bring to the surface what she had sensed in Frank before she even met him. That he was bad for her best friend.
Unnecessary
What? Hes dead
“Okay,” he says. “Cool. No problem.” She exhales. “Oh, so the other reason I was calling,” he adds, “and I hope this isn’t weird, but I was wondering if you could hook me up with Aubrey’s number?”
Hahahaha
Maya waited once more for her mom to fall asleep before taking her keys and driving her car to Frank’s cabin.
Is this a flashback? The chapters could be labeled
Home. Something good on the stove, a fire in the fireplace.
Then comes the tantalizingly fragrant soup that she never tastes because the sudden reminder of her father’s book threatens to shatter the illusion.
But as soon as she thinks it, the thought slips away, and what happens over the following few minutes will lie buried beneath the lowest cellar floor of her head for seven years.
while she was busy looking at the sky, or the wall, or the fire, or the soup.
Soup again
Copied “Certified . . . therapist” and pasted it into the document. She selected the “Read Aloud” option. What she heard turned her blood to ice. The middle of the word sounded garbled. She couldn’t hear it any more than she could read it on her screen. “Certified *#@^-therapist.” The warping was subtle—she might not have noticed had she only heard it once—but it kept happening. “Certified *#@^-therapist.” Maya’s heart raced. She slowed down the reading speed. Held the phone to her ear and closed her eyes and listened over and over and over and over. She listened until she heard. And a black
...more
“We talked about magic,” Aubrey says. “He told me he practiced a little himself, sleight of hand, coin tricks, that kind of thing. As if he thought that would impress me.” Maya’s face burns. She herself was easy to impress.
Loser
“Knock, knock,” Frank says at the screen door. They turn, eyes wide with fear. There’s no telling how long he’s been there. How much he’s heard. Maya instinctively picks up a knife that had been lying by the sink.
Haha
She slid a chef’s knife from its block in the kitchen. She wrapped the gleaming blade in a dish towel and put it in her purse.
Girl
The voice inside of her screamed, but her mouth watered at whatever Frank had cooking on the stove. She smelled garlic. Fresh herbs. Cooked meat.
