Tuesday Taste: I Was Told There'd Be Cake

"As most New Yorkers have done, I have given serious and generous thought to the state og my apartment should I get killed during the day. Say someone pushes me onto the subway travks. Or I get accidentally blown up. Or a woman with a headset and baby carriage wheels over my big toe, backing me into some scaffolding, which shakes loose a lead pipe, which lands on my scull. What then? After the ambulance, the hospital, the funeral, the trays of cheese cubes on foil toothpicks... 

Back in the apartment I never should have left, the bed has gone unmade and the dishes unwashed. The day I get shot in a bodega (buying cigarettes, naturally) will in all likelihood be the day before laundry Sunday and the day after I decided to clean out my closet, got halfway through, and opted to watch sitcoms in my prom dress instead."

Borrowed from I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley

My comment: I have read a few of the essays in this collection, and I love them. I knew this book was something I would enjoy the moment I found it stuffed into an overflowing shelf at a bookstore called Greenlight Books in Brooklyn. I have yet to finish the collection, but I have really enjoyed it so far and I encourage you to check it out if you like essay collections as much as I do, and even if you don't I think you might still like this.

Tuesday Taste: A Court of Thornes and Roses (4)

"The forest had become a labyrinth of snow and ice. I'd been monitoring the parameters of the thicket for and hour, and my vantage point in the crook of a tree branch had turned useless. The gusting wind blew thick flurries to sweep away my tracks, but buried along with them any sign of potential quarry. Hunger had brought me farther from home then I usually risked, but winter was the hard time. The animals pulled in, going deeper into the woods than I could follow, leaving me to pick off stragglers one by one, praying they'd last until spring. They hadn't."

Taken from A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas.

My comment: I have just started reading this, and after finishing Throne of Glass, and loving it, I am expecting great things from this. If you've read this, I'd love to hear what you think about it. Let's talk in the comments :)

Tuesday Taste: Everything Sucks But I'm Still Happy (3)

"This is losing your father and virginity within a month of each other. A sweaty back sticking to the fogged up window of my 16 year old boyfriend's car. The smell. Musty and sweet, and clinical, like running a marathon and having a check up at the doctors office all at once. The pungent latex from the condom, the ammonia-bleach-like semen, and all these things I wasn't really supposed to be smelling in the midst of grief." 

(Taken from the essay "How it Feels to Lose Your Father and Your Virginity Within 30 Days of Each Other" by Ari Eastman)

My comment: I have started reading this collection of essays, and there is something very emotional and beautiful about the way Ari Eastman writes. It is brutally honest as well as very relatable. She writes about her experiences, about loss and heartache, and just trying to get trough the toughest days. I see myself in her writing a lot of the time, which is why I think I enjoy it so much. I encourage you to give it a try also.

You can find more information about the book here, and the author here.

Tuesday Taste: Marly's Ghost (2)

"Marly was dead, to begin with. There was no doubt whatsoever about that. I had been there. When she went off the treatments, she decided she wanted to die at hime, and she wanted me to be there with her family. So I sat, and I waited, and I was destroyed. There are no metaphors, no words for such a feeling. You are left with no doubt, and endless doubt. We stood around the bed, counting her breaths, holding our own. Her father held her hand. Her mother sobbed. Her grandmothers prayed. I felt as if I was being undone one stitch at a time. She was sixteen years old, but there in bed she could have been ninety."

My comment: I can't wait to read this book, I have read, and loved, some of David Levithan's books before, and I have a feeling that this young adult novel, with a Charles Dickens twist is going to be just as amazing as his other books.

You can find the book here and the author here.

Tuesday Taste: No One Belongs Here More Than You (1)

"It still counts, even though it happened when he was unconscious. It counts doubly because the conscious mind often makes mistakes, falls for the wrong person. But down there in the well, where there is no light and only thousand-year-old water, a man has no reason to make mistakes. God says do it and you do it. Love her and it is so. He is my neighbor. He is of Korean descent. His name is Vincent Chang. He doesn't do hapkido. When you say the word "Korean," some people automatically thing of Jackie Chan's South Korean hapkido instructor, Grandmaster Kin Jin Pal; I think of Vincent." 

(Taken from the short story "The Shared Patio" by Miranda July)

My comment: This first story in Miranda July's short story collection is written in a very interesting voice, and from peaking at the stories in the rest of the collection I have a feeling that I am going to be reading stories that all have a distinct voice, but that are all completely different. I can't wait to keep reading this collection, because I think it's going to be great. 

You can find more information about the book here, and the author here.