(...) But The Skin Remembers, The Body Holds Everything Inside Itself, The Bones Can Stiffen To Claws.

Notes on an Execution || Danya Kukafka ★★★★★ Started: 11.10.2024 Finished: 20.10.2024 Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours. He knows what he’s done, and now awaits execution, the same chilling fate he forced on those girls, years ago. But Ansel doesn’t want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood. He hoped it wouldn’t end like this, not for him. Through a kaleidoscope of women—a mother, a sister, a homicide detective—we learn the story of Ansel’s life. We meet his mother, Lavender, a seventeen-year-old girl pushed to desperation; Hazel, twin sister to Ansel’s wife, inseparable since birth, forced to watch helplessly as her sister’s relationship threatens to devour them all; and finally, Saffy, the homicide detective hot on his trail, who has devoted herself to bringing bad men to justice but struggles to see her own life clearly. As the clock ticks down, these three women sift through the choices that culminate in tragedy, exploring the rippling fissures that such destruction inevitably leaves in its wake. Blending breathtaking suspense with astonishing empathy, Notes on an Execution presents a chilling portrait of womanhood as it simultaneously unravels the familiar narrative of the American serial killer, interrogating our system of justice and our cultural obsession with crime stories, asking readers to consider the false promise of looking for meaning in the psyches of violent men.

Experimenting with a different kind of graphic for the April wrap-up! Finished up the Goodreads Community Favorites Challenge and made a little progress with my 25 for 2025!

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

“Can a magician kill a man by magic?” Lord Wellington asked Strange. Strange frowned. He seemed to dislike the question. “I suppose a magician might,” he admitted, “but a gentleman never could.”

Trick or treat!

I give you, a very respectable, distinguished homeowner 🐾

[2023|46] Clytemnestra (2023) written by Costanza Casati

“She can’t take the same path back . All her life she’s avoided that, always making a circle, afraid to return for what she might find waiting along the way. The sense always of being followed.”

From Bright Air Black by David Vann

The Bell Jar || Sylvia Plath ★★★★★ Started: 03.05.2025 Finished: 06.05.2025 Working as an intern for a New York fashion magazine in the summer of 1953, Esther Greenwood is on the brink of her future. Yet she is also on the edge of a darkness that makes her world increasingly unreal. Esther's vision of the world shimmers and shifts: day-to-day living in the sultry city, her crazed men-friends, the hot dinner dances... The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath's only novel, is partially based on Plath's own life. It has been celebrated for its darkly funny and razor-sharp portrait of 1950's society and has sold millions of copies worldwide. The Bell Jar was simply sensational - I'd been interested in reading it for ages, but I never thought I'd enjoy it so much! The writing is sublime, and Esther is a little too relatable for comfort...

Trail therapy

dgsc