Jenn ~ Smalltown Bookworm

“I think,' Juna says after a pause, 'that the thing about losing someone isn't the loss but the absence of afterwards. D'you know what I mean? The endlessness of that.”
― Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

“And perhaps something inside her had cracked. All her life, she'd taken for granted that doing the right thing - being conscientious and kind and considerate - would be rewarded; that official procedures and processes could be relied upon. That there would always be a number to call, a person to report to, an answer to every question. That facts would always, inevitably, prevail.

But she'd been wrong. When she sought help through the proper channels, the procedures, no one gave her a gold star or thanked her for asking nicely. Instead, they wanted her to keep being nice, to put Ben's feelings - his reputation, his future - above her own. They wanted her to go away.”
― Emilia Hart, The Sirens

“I feel exhausted, a feeling of catching up, a feeling of something finding me. My heart is a thin thing, these days—shred of paper blown between the spaces in my ribs.”
― Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

“We topple tyrants, right wrongs, and restore the earth. We are the oracles who tell the future. We are the temptresses who taste the apple. We are the women who balance the scales.”
― Kirsten Miller, The Women of Wild Hill