scribblingcynic

[scribblingcynic]

"Phoebe is starting to understand that on some nights, Lila is probably the loneliest girl in the world, just like Phoebe. And maybe they are all lonely. Maybe this is just what it means to be a person. To constantly reckon with being a single being in one body. Maybe everybody sits up at night and creates arguments in their head for why they are the loneliest person in the world. Lila has no maid of honor and Phoebe has never been a maid of honor. It has always been a mark of shame for her, that no woman in this world was willing to claim her."

The Wedding People by Alison Espach

[scribblingcynic]

"And this, Reese reflects, is the other reason to be a mother--in whatever fashion motherhood comes your way--so when you're old and alone and feeling sorry for yourself, your daughter will roll her eyes at your theatrics and bring you in the from the cold."

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

[scribblingcynic]

“Their family had always been good at hellos and goodbyes, moments ending even as they began. It was easy to love someone in the beginnings and endings; it was all the time in between that was so hard.”

Blue Sisters by Coco Mellors

[scribblingcynic]

At home, Joy inspires an alchemic shift in Wren's perspective. Wren no longer sees life as a long, linear ladder with a beginning, middle, and end. Instead, she considers how life is like a spiraling trail up a mountain. Each circling lap represents a learning cycle, the same lesson at a slightly higher elevation. Wren realizes she likes to rest as much as she likes to climb. She begins to enjoy the view.

Shark Heart by Emily Habeck

[scribblingcynic]

It's been two and a half years since Sasha brought home a newborn for me to care for, and perhaps, like with all new things, the fear disappeared with time. I imagine this feeling isn't so different from that of a new mother. The first child seems so dependent and fragile that it's hard to believe they will ever be anything other than terrifying. Then comes the second child, and maybe a third, and suddenly you have this acute understanding that it is unlikely you will kill the children. In fact, it's far more likely that the children are going to kill you.

Wanted: Toddler's Personal Assistant by Stephanie Kiser

[scribblingcynic]

That's the thing about cliches. They have enough space for everyone inside, and so they can't help but make a person feel like no one at all.

Terrace Story by Hilary Leichter

[scribblingcynic]

By the end of the hour, all of them understood the basics of navigation with a compass, or with the sun. If both of those techniques failed, concluded T.J., the most important thing was not to panic. For a bonus, she asked them: Who knew the origins of the word? "Which word?" someone said. "Panic," said T.J. But no one raised a hand. She explained. It came from the Greek god Pan: the god of the woods. He liked to trick people, to confuse and disorient them until they lost their bearings, and their minds. To panic, said T.J., was to make an enemy of the forest. To stay calm was to be its friend.

The God of the Woods by Liz Moore

[scribblingcynic]

I no longer want to protect my heart. You can't guarantee that people won't hurt or betray you--they will, be it a breakup or something as big and blinding as death. But evading heartbreak is how we miss our people, our purpose. I make a pact with myself and send it off into the desert: May I be awake enough to notice when love appears and bold enough to pursue it without knowing where it will lead. Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad

[scribblingcynic]

“When something changes you constitutionally, you say: ‘The earth moved.’ But the earth stays the same. It’s your relationship with the ground that shifts.”

-The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

[scribblingcynic]

"She knew the man was at this moment not going through these mental spirals, was not deconstructing the interaction and litigating it before a fake jury. That's the thing about assholes--they are assholes unreflectively. No asshole thinks to himself: Yeah, that was a quality asshole move. No, they just are. They go around just being, in perfect clueless bliss.

-Wellness by Nathan Hill

[scribblingcynic]

"How many generations of women had delayed their greatness only to have time extinguish it completely? How many women had run out of time while the men didn't know what to do with theirs? And what a mean trick to call such things holy or selfless. How evil to praise women for giving up each and every dream." -Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

[scribblingcynic]

There is no explaining this simple truth about life: you will forget much of it. The painful things you were certain you'd never be able to let go? Now you're not entirely sure when they happened, while the thrilling parts, the heart-stopping joys, splintered and scattered and became something else. Memories are then replaced by different joys and larger sorrows, and unbelievably, those things get knocked aside as well, until one morning you're picking cherries with your three grown daughters and your husband goes by on the Gator and you are positive that this is all you've ever wanted in the world.

Tom Lake by Ann Patchett

[scribblingcynic]

"Grief, I'd come to realize, was like dust. When you're in the thick of a dust storm, you're completely disoriented by the onslaught, struggling to see or breathe. But as the force recedes, and you slowly find your bearings and see a path forward, the dust begins to settle into the crevices. And it will never disappear completely--as the years pass, you'll find it in unexpected places at unexpected moments. Grief is just love looking for a place to settle."

-The Collected Regrets of Clover by Mikki Brammer

[scribblingcynic]

"For a long time, I wondered if there were a certain thing I could have uttered to change the outcome of the situation. I imagined what I didn't say as a single perfect sentence, a narrow, discrete rectangle, like a ruler; it was unknowable to me, but somewhere in the world, it existed." - Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

[scribblingcynic]

Only the dead can be so constantly present.

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

[scribblingcynic]

We like Cal but it sounds weak and also somehow like a bully. David is okay but Dave sounds like he puts too much gel in his hair. I dated a Charlie and he wore his cell phone on his belt. Toby sounds like his collar is always wrinkled and folded over on itself. Show me a boy's name and I'll show you a man who has ruined it.

And Now We Have Everything by Meaghan O’Connell

[scribblingcynic]

Alice wasn't a writer, but she'd spent enough time sitting at dinner tables with novelists to understand that fiction was a myth. Fictional stories, that is. Maybe there were bad ones out there, but the good ones, the GOOD ones--those were always true. Not the facts, not the rights and the lefts, not the plots, which could take place in outer space or in hell or anywhere in between, but the feelings. The feelings were the truth.

This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub