furyofvissarion (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
furyofvissarion) wrote2015-09-29 09:00 pm
furyofvissarion) wrote2015-09-29 09:00 pm
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The Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living - Russ Harris. A reread; I took more time over the exercises this time, but as I have zero recollection of what I decided while doing them, possibly I didn't actually get the full benefit. Still, I feel like this kind of thing is useful to remind oneself of, even in a halfassed sorta way.
Jellicoe Road - Melina Marchetta. So creepy! At first I thought it was going to be some cliched story about kids at a boarding school who have a historical, formalized grievance w/the local kids & the cadets who come there for a few months annually. It took a while for the story to get past that, but I'm glad it did. Pretty dark & disturbing -- I could see some of the plot twists coming but that didn't really diminish their impact.
Saving Francesca - Melina Marchetta. I feel like I might've read this about ten years ago when it first came out? I remembered reading Looking for Alibrandi, but didn't think I'd read this -- & yet one line later on in the book ("you're my rock") made me snap my head up in teary-eyed recognition.
Anyway -- the titular Francesca is in high school, one of a handful of girls at a newly co-ed high school. Her school social strategy for the last few years has been to be carefully normal & neutral & boring, to the frustration of her feminist, outspoken mother Mia. When Mia becomes ill w/severe depression, Francesca, her dad, & her younger brother start to fall apart too. I didn't realize (didn't remember?) this book had so much to do w/depression, but I felt okay reading it, & I felt like, generally, it was handled in an okay way. En route to helping her mom start to claw her way back up to the surface again, Francesca does, as you might expect, learn some lessons about conformity & being real & vulnerable & what real friendship & love means. That sounds really glib but I loved this book, & the difficult delicate moments felt v. real, & I was cheering Francesca on as she slowly realizes that her new real friends love her for being her genuine, goofy, outspoken, loud self.
Jellicoe Road - Melina Marchetta. So creepy! At first I thought it was going to be some cliched story about kids at a boarding school who have a historical, formalized grievance w/the local kids & the cadets who come there for a few months annually. It took a while for the story to get past that, but I'm glad it did. Pretty dark & disturbing -- I could see some of the plot twists coming but that didn't really diminish their impact.
Saving Francesca - Melina Marchetta. I feel like I might've read this about ten years ago when it first came out? I remembered reading Looking for Alibrandi, but didn't think I'd read this -- & yet one line later on in the book ("you're my rock") made me snap my head up in teary-eyed recognition.
Anyway -- the titular Francesca is in high school, one of a handful of girls at a newly co-ed high school. Her school social strategy for the last few years has been to be carefully normal & neutral & boring, to the frustration of her feminist, outspoken mother Mia. When Mia becomes ill w/severe depression, Francesca, her dad, & her younger brother start to fall apart too. I didn't realize (didn't remember?) this book had so much to do w/depression, but I felt okay reading it, & I felt like, generally, it was handled in an okay way. En route to helping her mom start to claw her way back up to the surface again, Francesca does, as you might expect, learn some lessons about conformity & being real & vulnerable & what real friendship & love means. That sounds really glib but I loved this book, & the difficult delicate moments felt v. real, & I was cheering Francesca on as she slowly realizes that her new real friends love her for being her genuine, goofy, outspoken, loud self.