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Hardboiled & Hard Luck by Banana Yoshimoto
“I felt as if this place I had come to was nowhere. As if I no longer had a home to return to. That road I had been on didn’t lead anywhere, this trip would never end—it seemed to me as if next morning would never arrive.” Banana Yoshimoto is at her whimsical best in…
1990s, 1st pov, 3.5 STARS, Adult, ハードボイルド／ハードラック, Banana Yoshimoto, collection of short stories, Contemporary, DEATH, dreamlike quality, Dreams, existentialism, f/f, favourite authors, female authors, forgiveness, ghosts/spirits, GRIEF, heartbreak/breakups, hotel, illness, japan, JAPANESE AUTHOR, lgbtq+, LITERARY FICTION, loneliness, Longing, MAGICAL REALISM, melancholy, MEMORY, navel gazing, no plot just vibes, published in 1999, queer, read in 2023, right person wrong time, sapphic, short stories, SISTERS, SLICE OF LIFE, suicide, surreal, TRANSLATED FICTION, unnamed narrator, uplifting reads -
Are You Happy Now by Hanna Jameson
“That this was the trade-off. The price of happiness. In order to feel happy he had to feel everything.” A quietly crushing yet devastatingly tender work scintillating with insight and emotional intelligence. With acuity and empathy Hanna Jameson presents her readers with a captivating narrative chronicling four people’s attempts at happiness despite a looming health…
3rd pov, 4.5 STARS, Adult, adulthood, age gap, ALIENATION, ambivalent mood, America, anxiety, Are You Happy Now, atmospheric, bad love, beautiful prose, belonging, BISEXUAL/PANSEXUAL, British author, contemporary malaise, dancers, DEATH, DEPRESSION, desire, divorce/separations, ennui, female authors, first love, gay, Hanna Jameson, heartbreak/breakups, i don’t think happiness is for me, identity, illness, introspective, it’s about the *yearning*, jealousy, journalism, lgbtq+, LITERARY FICTION, loneliness, Longing, m/m, male friendships, melancholy, mental health, musicians, near future/alternate reality, NEW YORK, pandemic, psychological, published in 2023, queer, read in 2022, restrained prose, right person wrong time, ROMANCE, self-destructive, SEXUALITY, SPECULATIVE FICTION, strong sense of place, suicide, trauma, unrequited love, wedding drama, work culture
luce [is reading] 