“Life offers up these moments of joy despite everything,”
― Normal People
― Normal People
“He can’t help Marianne, no matter what he does. There’s something frightening about her, some huge emptiness in the pit of her being. It’s like waiting for a lift to arrive and when the doors open nothing is there, just the terrible dark emptiness of the elevator shaft, on and on forever. She’s missing some primal instinct, self-defense or self-preservation, which makes other human beings comprehensible. You lean in expecting resistance, and everything just falls away in front of you.”
― Normal People
― Normal People
“How much strength does it take to hurt a little girl? How much strength does it take for the girl to get over it? Which one of them do you think is stronger?”
― My Dark Vanessa
― My Dark Vanessa
“Sometimes it feels like that’s all I’m doing every time I reach out—trying to haunt, to drag him back in time, asking him to tell me again what happened. Make me understand it once and for all. Because I’m still stuck here. I can’t move on.”
― My Dark Vanessa
― My Dark Vanessa
“Often father and daughter look down on mother (woman) together. They exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point. They agree that she is not bright as they are, cannot reason as they do. This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother’s fate.”
― Radical Feminist Therapy: Working in the Context of Violence
― Radical Feminist Therapy: Working in the Context of Violence
Olivia’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Olivia’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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