Welcome to Litsy!

Overall didn't like this one, the stories were too obscure to let the reader in so the experience reading isn't enjoyable. The last story is amazing and you can find it online, search for the author's name and the title "you, disappearing". Read it there and skip this book.

"Drivers honked sporadically, without aggression, like migrating geese."
-"You, Disappearing"

"Hunger is, in and of itself, an eye pointed continually at what is lacking and how badly."
-"Rabbit Starvation"

"There are times when any amount of being within the world is like rubbing bare skin against sandpaper, when any form of motion is a kind of abrasion, leaving you raw and pink and vulnerable to the next thing."
-"Fake Blood"

"Infiltration: I tongued that [word] further. I knew it had a hostile aspect, like someone breaking into your house or posing as someone that you should trust. But it also had a lovely sound, a kind of tapered point and a gently ruffled edge"
-"Intimation"

"Karen...had always believed that a person without trauma was dangerous in some way, untested."
-"Jellyfish"

"The past was just a place where uncontrolled freaks you had never consciously decided to include in your life entered it anyway and staggered around, breaking things."
-"Choking Victim"

"Her mother had a saying. Whenever you had given your all, she would tell you that it was time to “let the legumes grow.” This meant recognizing that you had nothing left to do because you had nothing left. You were a fallow field from which nothing more was going to come. Your task was to lay back and wait for the spring, when something might once again grow from you."
-"I May Not Be the One You Want, But I Am the One For You"

-"Unhabited," titled section of the story "A Brief History of Weather"

"Lightning walks the plain like a tall, glowing man."
-"Unhabited," titled section of the story "A Brief History of Weather"

"The utility of a sister stems from the longing for reinforcement, for an additional, aligned person inside the house to see what is happening and feel some way about it. This has something to do with why we are fitted with two eyes instead of one"
-"Instead of One," titled section of the story "A Brief History of Weather"

"A feeling might claw you open with the simple intention of freeing itself, and it would be no one‘s fault."
-"The First Idea," titled section of the story "A Brief History of Weather"

-"Learned Motions," titled section of the story "A Brief History of Weather"
Asterisks mine; I asterisked out an ableist slur, whose inclusion in the passage I found baffling.

Really fun to read, delightful little bites of surrealism. A perfect escape from the tedium if that *other* book

I just realized that I forgot to start my phone's stop watch again before I started the audiobook of Bright Lines. Oops. Not going to make it anyway. Picked this up at the library during my outing. Anyone read it yet? #24in48

Her novel was one of my favorite books of last year, so I've been excited to get to this collection. I didn't love every story, but the ones I did just blew my hair back. No one writes surreal like her. She's brilliant.

"I would never have considered myself an expert on real blood or murder mysteries or staged deaths or party etiquette, but I have a good deal of experience with fake blood; and this just did not look like genuine fake blood."

I mostly read library books so when I buy new friends I get really excited. Like "photo shoot on the beach" excited ?

"A diet of questions is a steady way to shed weight, and health, and contentment."

Happy book birthday, Alex!

INTIMATIONS by the wickedly talented Alexandra Kleeman, out 9/13. You'll want to move it to the top of your TBR pile, just trust me on this.

Another book that will make September great. Stories that explore the human lifespan with Kleeman's brand of quirky / odd.

MEEP! Ahhhh I'm so excited about this one that I've lost my words!

Eeeeeeeeeeee! I could not be more excited if I swallowed a cat and broke out in kittens!!!!!! I loved her debut so much.