Do You Lay Bread On Your Tongue And Think Of Me [...] Do You Swallow It Like A Sacrament, Do You Still

"Chain your anger in the dark and it will only thrive." - The Will of the Many, James Islington

Emissa and Vis. Still thinking about them

I am not an artist but I couldn't get this image out of my head

"She found a cage for him. It felt appropriate that she should put him back in one, and Crow had a couple of the appropriate size for keeping messenger birds.

It broke Tress's heart to leave Huck inside, huddled against the bars, refusing to face her."

(rat foto i traced below the cut ^^ )

(Bonus: without the front cage bars)

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.

“Who she is makes no sense to her. How she became. What she will become still.”

— David Vann, Bright Air Black

Trail therapy

dgsc

The River Has Roots || Amal El-Mohtar ★★★★★ Started: 22.05.2025 Finished: 01.06.2025 In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family. There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees. But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favor of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters’ bond but also their lives will be at risk…

Weight || Jeanette Winterson ★★★★★ Started: 13.11.2023 Finished: 14.11.2023 The story of Atlas and Heracles Atlas knows how it feels to carry the weight of the world; but why, he asks himself, does it have to be carried at all? In Weight — visionary and inventive, yet completely believable and relevant to the questions we ask ourselves every day — Winterson’s skill in turning the familiar on its head to show us a different truth is put to stunning effect. When it comes to recent retellings of Greek Myths, my approach can best be described as kissing paper frogs, hoping one of them would turn out to be a masterpiece. Most understandably didn't. With "Weight", however, my perseverance was rewarded in spectacular fashion. This is no mere recounting of events, it's a careful, considerate and thoughtful conversation with an age-old story. It's building upon the solid fundament of universal truth within the myth and intertwining it with the experiences of contemporary readers. An absolute pleasure to experience, and certainly a book to return to time and time again.