Lisa Eckstein > Recent Status Updates

"She didn’t know if the heat she felt was her hating herself as the people who paid to watch her imprisonment begged for a chance to touch her. It was as if they needed to feel her with their own hands to know that she was real. What did they think could be gleaned from her skin? She could get drunk on their wild want. They made her feel like she was someone else. Someone deserving." Great, nuanced writing!

"I had set out on the Anthro Challenge not knowing what to expect from Earth. That was part of the adventure. Strange to think of my body as a world, but if I applied the same attitude to my internal state, then my health was another journey, another opportunity to embrace surprises and setbacks along with plans and uncertainties. Every morning brought something new."

Cool how this is such a different sort of plot than the first book - though I suppose they are both essentially adventure stories!

Happy to be back in this story world. It's fascinating to see how the next generation reacts to the choices made in the first book!

This just hasn't been grabbing me like it did other readers, but it will be nice to see the characters find their way back to each other.

Interesting premise, sympathetic characters.

"In a spy movie, this would have been done in a montage. Instead, I had to clamber to my narrative conclusion, step by staggering step." The plot has unfolded in a satisfying way, and I'm eager to read that narrative conclusion!

Fun and intriguing! There are a lot of different ways this story might be going.

Beautiful chapter on the idea of replacing family trees with family gardens, that really digs into (ha!) the many possible ways to make use of this metaphor.

As expected, this is so thoughtful, so carefully presented, and so beautifully illustrated!

This is a lot of fun so far, and I'm excited about the time traveling shenanigans that are starting to be hinted at.

"What I wanted more than anything was to grow up. Hard to explain, given how I got short-sheeted on the childhood. Carefree, what is that? If I'd ever known at all, I couldn't remember. But I was still stuck outside of full adulthood, blowing smoke under its door, eyeing the windows with a cement block. It's all we want, we ragged boys of the world. To live as men." Great writing, but there's a lot of it!

"Cary and Mikey sounded exactly like they always had. If Shiloh closed her eyes and pretended her lower back didn't hurt, she could be seventeen again."

Demon's voice and perspective are so well done, keeping me completely absorbed!

This is sweet, and I really feel for the characters.

This is fun, and often funny!

Demon's story and narration are compelling (though could probably be a bit shorter).

Absorbed by this character and story!

"Moving in with Elizabeth cut down on the time available to harm himself. This was how relationships worked for men: When they grew closer to someone who did not want them to die, they had to confront the many ways they were killing themselves."

"No matter how much Elizabeth loved me... I could never shake the sense that I was, for her, like a supplementary arm grafted onto the center of her stomach. Occasionally, the limb would prove helpful, say, when she needed to hold a third cup or haul something heavy, but most days the limb was an obstruction, a severely noticeable appendage that people treated with kindness and respect to hide their concern."

Next book club pick, and I'm glad for the motivation to get back to reading Kingsolver. What a great narrative voice!

"He had been content. He had built the 'good' life--good job, good home, good reputation--he'd been raised to have. He felt at his best when there was order, when he could discern the right course. This for Dixon had been the equivalent of 'happy.' How could he have imagined that definition could contain a mountain?"

Now that we're back in the Everest part of the story, it's so tense! (The non-Everest plot is good, but just can't live up to the main story.)

The shifts between time periods, circling around what happened, are building up so much tension and intrigue.

Really enjoying the adventure and suspense of two brothers climbing Everest together!

Getting into the exciting end stages of the quest!

Really enjoying the worldbuilding and events of each part of the quest.

Such a cool collection of things happening in this world and story!

"When you say 'What story?' to a chronicler, you ought to know you are asking for it. Ariel trudged onward, and I told him the whole history of Earth.

Rocky spheroid develops taste for life (soup, lighting). Pale purple dot. A billion boring years. Oxygen revolution. A really great party, crashed by an asteroid. Disaster."

This is all very cool!