Devan > Recent Status Updates

“I think grief is like a really ugly couch. It never goes away. You can decorate around it; you can slap a doily on top of it; you can push it to the corner of the room—but eventually, you learn to live with it.”

“Just because the cherry blossoms would fall didn’t mean you should mourn them on the tree.”

“it’s about not chasing an external ideal, not trying to fit someone else’s vision of you and instead building with the community of people who simply accept you as you are.”

“If you did nothing for the rest of your life of any note, you’d be more than enough.”

“That’s exactly the problem right now. People think they’re only responsible for people exactly like them.”

“The need to call this thing “good” and that thing “bad,” this thing “white” and this thing “black,” was an impulse Effia did not understand. In her village, everything was everything. Everything bore the weight of everything else.”

“When power belongs, not to the violent, and not to the wealthy and well-connected, but to the people, a different sort of future begins to present itself.”

“That’s how the losses of rights build. They start small.”

How many times is this book going to use the word “filial?”

There’s a good possibility that it’s my tired brain and not this book, but who in the world are all these characters the first 8 chapters have thrown at me? Rose, Connie, Veronika, Sophie, Grace, Deborah, Margie (??), Enigma….i know Liane’s books are “trust the process” kind of works, but I’m going to need some clearing up to happen real soon.

“I hated when she did that. When she reduced me to a lovesick, airheaded child.”

Isn’t that exactly what Liz is? Romanticizing every single moment of her life, making soundtracks, detached from realty and acting like life is her own personal rom com?

Maybe this book will redeem itself in the final 43%, but right now I’m wondering how in the world it has a 4.26 rating on Goodreads.

Maybe I shouldn’t have listened to the audiobook version of this (because I have to stop and start), but I didn’t realize I should have been taking detailed notes just to be able to keep up with what in the hellllllll was happening with this plot. WAY too many characters, way too many plot lines, and the book was WAY. TOO. LONG. My gosh, that one was painful to finish.

Infuriating things about this book:
-America absolutely refusing to tell Maxon she loves him, despite repeated opportunities to do so. If he can’t say it out loud, why should she?? Eye roll.
-She’s also mad because she wants “every piece” of him. His entire affection, attention. Ma’am did you miss the part where you were in a literal contest with other girls to compete for his attention? He can’t!