Kris
This lovely book was published in 1930 and has lost none of its charm. I will admit I got lost a few times when they talked about certain fashion items (gaberdine?), but overall a nice story about a young womans struggle to make her own way in the world.
Bought in the wonderful Persephone Bookstore (London) who reprint ‘neglected fiction and non-fiction by mid-twentieth century (mostly) woman writers'.
Loved it! My first Mary Roach book and have more on the to-be-read-list (Up next: ‘Stiff' and ‘Grunt'). She writes super accessible and very entertaining. I learned a lot, while also being very amused. Definitely recommend.
JUP. Read it, weep, take stock of your life, act accordingly. It's been awhile since a book delivered a sentence, an idea, a moment that has made me weep in recognition.
A gut-wrenching, timely, f*cking beautiful memoir. A new fierce icon. ♥️
“When I listened to her, I understood: You have to hold out to see how your life unfolds, because it is most likely to be beyond what you can imagine. It is not a question of if you will survive this, but what beautiful things await you when you do.”
“This book does not have a happy ending. The happy part is there is no ending, because I'll always find a way to keep going.”
Loved it! Was curious because of the new BBC series that just came out and wanted to read the book before seeing that. Lovely characters and great observations about life in general.
“Life offers up these moments of joy despite everything.”
“Generally I find that men are a lot more concerned with limiting the freedoms of women than exercising personal freedom for themselves, says Marianne.”
Love, love, loved it. Laughed more at the first book I read from Samantha (‘Meaty'). I mean, I laughed a lot with this one too but it also had more relatable moments like:
‘I'm not even sure I had a personality back then; I just tried to haphazardly arrange other people's projections and shit I thought was cool into something captivating.'
Definitely recommend. Next step: I gotta go buy her third book :)
I picked it up because I absolutely loved her Graceling-books. However, I was slightly disappointed by this one. I just couldn't really connect to the story or some of the characters. There are some interesting aspects to the worlds she tried to create, but overall not a book I would recommend or reread (which I have done with the Graceling-series).
I read the Dutch version of this book. There are great observations and lovely sentences in it, but overall it didn't live up to the hype for me. I might try one of his other books.
Absolutely hi-la-rious! Randomly bought it while in London for a couple of days, and was awkwardly trying not to gigglesnort while on the subway
Poetic and suggestive images, sparse language. Fast read, but sort of stays in your head for a while. It's about 3 people who live on a hill (more like a sort of bump, if you translate more accurately) and the things they talk about in all their apparent loneliness.