You have been taught that you are unclean, that you are not holy, that your body is impure and could never harbor the divine. You have been taught to despise everything that you are and to long only to be a man. But you have been taught lies. God lies within you, God has returned to teach you, in the form of this new power. Do not come to me looking for answers, for you must find the answers within yourself.

Even the circus freak side of my face-my damaged half-was better than the alternative, which would have meant death by fire. I didn't burn to ashes. I emerged from the flames like a little phoenix...I didn't burn, Mummy, I thought. I walked through the fire and I lived.
There are scars on my heart, just as thick, as disfiguring as those on my face... I hope some undamaged tissue remains, a patch through which love can come in and flow out. I hope.

I have to admit, this was a bit of a slog. I like personal essays a lot, but a couple of these were pretty boring. I enjoyed the most personal ones, like the one about growing up in the late nineties (I can relate), and the one about her grandparents. I enjoyed this book moderately, but wouldn't especially recommend it.

📖Favorite Hobby: reading, obvs
📖 Favorite Drink: White Russians
📖 Favorite Food: Anything sweet
📖 Favorite Color: Purple
📖 Favorite City: Austin TX
📖 Where My Dream House Would Be: Probably in a suburb of Austin
📖 Favorite Accessory: Black choker
📖 Favorite TV Show: Twin Peaks
📖 Last Movie I Watched In Theaters: The Huntsman: Winter's War
📖 Currently Reading: Eveningland, Radium Girls

I just cannot read this book anymore. Too desperately sad. Maybe I'll read it another time, but for now, it is too much.

60 pages in, and this book already breaks my heart. My mentally ill peers were burned at the stake, beaten, and tortured hundreds of years ago, and society still fears us. I'm so lucky to live in an age where medications allow me to have a normal life. It still devastates me that we are subject to such stigma. Not a book to read if you aren't prepared to be sad and/or very angry.

YUP

Got this at the library today. Not sure how much I'll like it, but the cover really got my attention.

This book is good for what it is. A quick read about the presence of arsenic in everyday items during the Victorian period, especially in wallpaper. There are many examples of this wallpaper interspersed between chapters. It is a visually lovely book, but I guess I feel like it was more style than substance.

New book haul from the library!

Recent library haul!

The turtle lay a long time on the bottom of the pond, resting. Then she turned, her eyes upon some flickering nearby as, without terror, without sorrow, but in the voracious arms of the first of the earth's gods, she did what she must, she did what all must do. All things are meltable, and replaceable. Not at this moment, but soon enough, we are lambs and we are leaves, and we are stars, and the shining, mysterious pond water itself.

May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful. May I stay forever in the stream. May I look down upon the windflower and the bull thistle and the coreopsis with the greatest respect.

I would have liked more info about Vita Sackville-West. Instead, the author dedicates the most room to her life and that of her mother. While this is kind of understandable, it wasn't enough to keep me interested.

Full of amusing vignettes, but after finding out the author was 17 at the time of writing, I couldn't take it seriously as a "memoir," and had to stop reading.

This book is a very, very sad expose of the mental health care "system" in this county. It was written 10 years ago, so one only hopes that conditions have improved and the recent reforms to the system will make a difference. This book shows me how fortunate I am to not have fallen through the cracks like so many of my peers, and I am so grateful.

But deep down, we really don't want to believe that's true. Because if we did, we would have to admit: It could happen to us. It.could happen to me. I could become the sniveling, deranged creature hiding under the steel bunk nibbling on day-old orange peels. And that is such a frightening thought that we quietly search though explanations to prove that the mentally ill really aren't like us and somehow deserve the torment they suffer.

This is a good book.

I didn't really appreciate some of the value judgements projected onto defenders of Trayvon Martin, which weren't very flattering. I find this ironic because Di Maio talks about always wishing to remain objective. Otherwise, a fascinating look into the determination of many notable forensic cases.

Starting this next; probably this week. Looking forward to it a lot! I tend to like somewhat morbid books a lot. :P

All done, but still going strong!

I can't decide whether I really like this book a lot or just liked it. The story is intriguing, but everything was wrapped too neatly at the end. I'd like to have been left wondering what happened, I think.

Doyle provides case studies of women in history to show that the "trainwreck" is nothing new: she is always "too much," and must be punished for it in a society where womanhood is still meant to be constrained and quiet. In this, she celebrates women's humanity in a world that doesn't allow for it.

This book is so freaking good.

:(((((

Although I disagree with him politically, Vance's story helped me understand some things about my family and those around me. I enjoyed it.

So well-written, but it would take me more than one read to catch all the nuances of her writing. While it is a good read, I can't see reading it again.

Here at the Texas Book Festival, about to see Emma Cline and Robin Wasserman!

Like Harlow's monkeys, I would have curled up with a wire doll if I thought it would love me back.

Almost done!

I enjoyed this book, but would have liked more background into the Maharishi and the cult. I understand why she kept the story more personal, though; after all, it is a memoir.

Today's library haul!

A collection of intertwining short stories that are mostly melancholy to some degree. Not a bad thing. The characters are full of bad memories and have a tendency to repress things, not unlike you or I. The title links up with the last story, but also speaks to our human condition. We are full of strong currents of emotion, wild to a degree, and so are the characters in these stories.

New books from the library!

Pineapple shisha and a good book. Happy Saturday. :)

Two pages in and already a paragraph I love.

My back porch is a mess but I can still relax and read there. :P

Intriguing for the mystery at the center of the book, but some of the characters' motivations are amorphous and hard to pin down. Still good on a mostly superficial level, and difficult to put down.

Hookah and a book, again! Enjoying it.

A page-turner for sure.

Using my hookah for the first time and reading a very intriguing book!

Just barely started this one tonight. Off to a strong start.

So funny and human. A reminder that we never can predict where our lives and our passions may lead us.

So dreamy and puzzling, and finally maddening as one figures out the narrator is not as reliable as one might hope. It seems that despite all the energy the people around them put into trying to understand them, the one thing they forget is that the Lisbon girls are human, not figures onto which to project one's own thoughts and feelings.

Starting this one tonight.

I have so many books out from the library that I don't know how I'll finish them all, and yet I got another one today! I have a problem, but it's a fun one, I guess.

Starting this one next. Interested to see how it is.

I don't completely know what to think about this one. In some respects I feel the story is hackneyed, with tired symbolism and unnecessary dualism, but on the other hand, the language used is beautiful and the story is highly original. In any case, a page-turner.

My favorite book store in Texas is also its largest. Austin's BookPeople has everything. #getindie #austin

I would have liked this a lot more if it had more firsthand accounts of the harm fracking has done to the environment and people's health. Instead it's about a campaign to ban fracking from Denton's city limits. This is to be expected from the book cover, I suppose, but the story had so many obvious rhetorical devices that they kind of brought me out of it.