Junot Diaz - This Is How You Lose Her, Or "I Am Lost In The Pits Of Jones Library"

Hi there!
I'm writing to you from some place in the Amherst / Jones Library basement. I can't get the window next to me to open and a white guy with dreads is reading The Valley Advocate in front of me with his socks and shoes off.  ~* weeestteerrrnn maaassss *~

Anyways, the reason I'm here writing to you instead of from the comfort of my iCloud bed and air conditioning is because it has been a long ass time since I read This Is How You Lose Her. Like, long enough for me to have taken the book out, read it, returned it, it was taken out by someone else & presumably read, and then returned. But I've got it once again! And I am going to tell you what I thought of it!! YEAH!

According to my GoodReads, I finished This Is How You Lose Her on June 12. I believe I had started it two days before. In that two days I annoyed my roommate to no end making her listen to my badly butchered renditions of my favorite passages.

This Is How You Lose Her is a collection of nine short stories that are all interlinked. Despite knowing this going into reading it, I was a little frustrated because some characters and their stories captured me a lot more than others and I was disappointed to leave them. Each story feels complete and whole, yet the collection seems to exist perfectly as a single unit as well. The stories hit home in a strange way. I've known Yunior. I've felt like Alma. I've seen the bitterness of loss turn lovers into Magdalenas. The stories are relatable, but at the same time intensely personal in a way that isn't mine.

I rated This Is How You Lose Her five stars. Thumbing through it again after a few weeks and re-reading my favorite stories and passages, I wish I could rate it a six. This was my first Diaz read and even though I just came to Jones to look through this book and write about it, I'm leaving with Diaz's Drown in tow because I simply couldn't resist.

Here's my favorite passage. It made the stones of my vertebrae crumble into bits:

"That night you lay in bed, awake, and listened to the ambulances tear down our street. The heat of your face could have kept my room warm for days. I didn't know how you stood the heat of yourself, of your breasts, of your face. I almost couldn't touch you. Out of nowhere you said, I love you. For whatever it's worth." (Diaz, Junot. "Flaca". This Is How You Lose Her.)

I'll end my post here because there's nothing to say after that passage. You should read this book.





Currently listening to: The sound of this white guy with dreads flipping through personal ads and rubbing his bare feet together. :o) I forgot my headphones.

Oops!

So it's been a minute or two… hey! How's it going?

Here's what's new in my life!

• I moved to Amherst in June and will be living here in an apartment with my best bud Sam until August, when I will be moving back to Mount Holyoke. 
• I am working as a nanny 4 days a week and doing occasional sitting too many days a week after work.
• Life is sweet!

Hmm… I thought things were more interesting but that seems to be the end of my list. Because I'm nannying I've been reading a lot of awesome children's lit and reliving some memories (shout out to you Ms. Nelson Is Missing!) But it's a little hard to just pause Native Son to refill a sippy cup or make sure a certain spunky two year old isn't flushing puzzle pieces down the toilet again and just pick it back up. 

So! I've decided to try to get back into my summer reading by being organized and making lists as I always do. (Plus, rest time is the perfect time to read something heavier than Dr. Seuss -- although dude's pretty heavy, let's be real). I've read two great books since June that I will review here, but before I do that, here is my actual comprehensive, and teensy, TO READ list (hopefully to be completed before school starts up again):

To Read: 

- Patricia Lockwood's 'Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals' (Really excited about this one! Just ordered it via Amazon)

- Keith Ridgway's Never Love A Gambler (Also just ordered, super stoked!)

- Courtney Maum's I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You 

I also have some exciting stuff I will be talking about in some future posts when some stuff is more concrete.

Thanks for stopping by!

Currently listening to: Thelonious Monk 'At The Five Spot' on vinyl

The Road, Cormac McCarthy

 "He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover. Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it."- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

       I recently finished Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It was definitely a heart-wrenching read, never mind that I was nearing the book's conclusion during Thanksgiving break. I certainly maintained my Clean Plate Club status with The Road in mind.
        Sometimes when I reach the end of a book I like to read the final pages out loud. I sat upright on the edge of my bed reading the end of this book choking and blinking to see past my tears. McCarthy's brief, stunning sentences turned what I intended to be a 25 page reading into a 75 page one, leading to me finishing the novel. This book wrung me out and I lay on my bed afterward like a crumpled sweater subjected to the weak Mount Holyoke dryers (that cost $1.50 a load, mind you). I went to the bathroom for tissues and made awkward eye contact with floor mates. Feeling expository I explained, "I just finished a book. I AM AN ENGLISH MAJOR." I don't know what reaction I thought that might get me... I blame the earth shattering encounter with loss I had just experienced for my delusion.
        Anyway, I then told every person I came into contact with how important it was that they understand how shaken this book had left me. It was horrifying. It was so beautiful. Parts of the story made my stomach feel like gelatinous cranberry sauce from a can, swaying in its perfectly disgusting mold of the aluminum can it called home for probably much longer than I as a consumer would like to believe. Other parts left thousands of paper cuts on my center and serated my sternum with brutal rusting tragedies.
        This book ruled. You should read it! I rated it four stars on goodreads (and in my heart.)
I'm hoping to read Blood Meridian, or The Evening Redness in the West soon, which is one of my brother Alexander's favorite books. My favorite passage from The Road is up at the top of this post.

Thanks for reading!
-M


**Shout out to Carter for lending me his copy of the book!

Introduction / About the Blogger!

Hey y'all!

        I figured it would make sense for me to write up a li'l introduction and include some details about myself!
        At this very moment I have just taken a relaxing lemony bath after a long day of finishing final papers and packing to leave school for winter break. I am a sophomore at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts and I study english. I hope to work in publishing children's literature someday. I also aspire to become a certified-trained doula. I like animals, plants, vegan food, punk stuff,  and learning.
        I am starting this blog as a sort of archive of things I read and the impact they have on me. I hope that this blog will be a cure to a case of reader's block I have had for some time, during which I have had so much trouble being able to read for pleasure or to document outside of papers the influence books I have read have had on me. I had a blog similar to this one that I ran in middle/high school wherein I reviewed books as well as albums. I am hoping that this will serve a similar purpose to that blog as a collection of my thoughts and feelings on literature that moves me or helps me to grow in some way or another. This blog is probably going to be very informal, I just want to have fun and that requires my being honest and true to myself and my personality / opinions. (I.e. weird). Posts here may not have perfect grammar or spelling, I may make strange references or tell silly anecdotes. I have no quota of books I plan to read, but I do hope to read 50 books in 2014. I am also currently trying to read 3 books before the end of 2013, but we will see how that goes!

Hmm, I suppose that's all for now!

Thanks for stopping by,
-M

Also, here is the link to my GoodReads, where I will be tracking and rating books I've read / want to read/ am reading. Friend me!