#The World Cannot Give
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Fave Five: Queer Dark Academia
For even more recs for dark academia fans, check out this post of Queer YA for Dark Academia Lovers.
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Society for Soulless Girls by Laura Steven (Bks)
All That Consumes Us by Erica Waters (Bks)
Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo (Bks)
The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton (Bks)
These Violent Delights by…
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#All That Consumes Us#An Education in Malice#Dark Academia#Derek Milman#Erica Waters#Laura Steven#Lee Mandelo#Micah Nemerever#S.T. Gibson#Society for Soulless Girls#Summer Sons#Tara Isabella Burton#The World Cannot Give#These Violent Delights
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As promised my list (so far) of Toxic Obsessive Homoerotic Friendship book recs, part 1! This list is my top ten, from most favorite to not quite as favorite (but still awesome) according to my own taste. I wanted to include pictures but it was a nightmare. I will make part two as soon as I can! Please give me your recs if you have any :) A lot of these books have heavy topics so please look up trigger warnings!
1. Black Iris by Elliot Wake (formerly known as Leah Raeder and the book is under that name)
Laney, a fresh high school graduate, meets two older college students, a boy and a girl, and they form a friendship and have different dynamics between all three of them. At the same time, she’s still dealing with a boy who bullied her in high school.
2. If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio
In present day, Oliver is being released from prison after being convicted of a violent crime. In the past we visit him and his close group of friends as they study at a very prestigious and exclusive Shakespeare acting academy, and learn what really happened.
3. These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever
Paul meets Julien in a freshman college Criminology class and they start an intense and possibly dangerous friendship in the 1970s.
4. The Wicker King by K. Ancrum
August struggles when his childhood best friend starts having hallucinations.
5. Girls on Fire by Robin Wasserman
Three girls, one popular, one a rebel, and one a wallflower have tangled friendships with each other in the 1990s.
6. Underneath Everything by March Beller Paul
Mattie, a high school student, reflects on her lost friendship with her best friend, Jolene. Is it over for good or is there a possibility for friendship again in the future?
7. The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton
Laura, a high school junior attends a boarding school that was the setting of her favorite novel, and becomes obsessed with the church choir there and the very religious girl who leads them.
8. The Lightness by Emily Temple
In search of her missing father, Olivia goes to a mountain top Buddhist retreat and becomes a part of a group of girls who are obsessed with learning how to levitate.
9. Suicide Notes from Beautiful Girls by Lynn Weingarten
June is filled with grief after her childhood best friend dies. She commits herself to finding out what happened.
10. The Falling Girls by Haley Krishner
After Shade decides to join the cheerleading squad at her high school, thereby disregarding her longtime best friend’s feelings, tensions rise among all of the girls involved.
#book recs#lgbtq books#book recommendations#lgbt books#lgbt book recs#lgbtqreads#if we were villains#these violent delights#girls on fire#black iris#the world cannot give#dark academia#dark academia books#thriller books#the wicker king#underneath everything#please reblog and read them!! these books deserve the hype#you can ask me if you have questions about trigger warnings or plots
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I don’t know why I keep walking into libraries and bookstores thinking I’m going to find something that gives me even a whisper of the feeling that I got from The Secret History. I mean, before I read TSH, it had been years since I read anything so bewitching. Why I think lightning is going to strike twice in less than a year is beyond me.
Anyway, the latest endeavor is Tara Isabella Burton’s The World Cannot Give.
You may stumble across this novel and read the interior flap and get excited:
“Brideshead Revisited meets Fight Club in this novel about a prestigious boarding school’s cultic chapel choir---and the obsessively ambitious, terrifyingly charismatic girl who rules over its members.”
Sounds good, right? I mean, obviously this is a Secret History-ish piece of deliberate dark academia, but hey, so what? Brideshead Revisited meets Fight Club? Why not?
That description is a fakeout. Early promos of the novel called it “The Girls meets Fight Club...” The Girls was a 2016 novel by Emily Cline, loosely based on Charles Manson’s cult, so that actually made a little more sense. I think they changed it to Brideshead Revisited because some marketing genius thought it would attract the dark academia types (like yours truly). I’ll bet they probably would have preferred to call out The Secret History, but decided not to after the author strenuously criticized TSH in a Gawker article two months before her book was published. More on that later. At any rate, The World Cannot Give is neither Brideshead Revisited nor Fight Club. If anything, it’s Pretty Little Liars meets a teensy bit of Dead Poets Society.
And of course, it’s The Secret History. Or wants to be. Laura Stearns is our Richard Papen, another hopeless wannabe from the tacky suburban West (Nevada, not California) who finds herself enthralled by the august atmosphere of an elite New England school, St. Dunstan’s Academy in Maine. Her longing for “beauty and meaning” is fueled by an obsession with someone named Sebastian Webster, who attended the same school in the 1930s. Dubbed “the prep school prophet,” Webster wrote one religiously-themed novel based on his years at St. Dunstan’s, then converted to Catholicism and ran off to Spain to fight FOR the fascists (!!!) during the Spanish Civil War, where he was killed at the romantic age of nineteen.
Instead of Julian’s class, the “secret society” of St. Dunstan’s is the six-member choir that sings evening prayer in the campus chapel every Friday night. Henry Winter’s role is taken by Virginia Strauss, the beautiful black-haired, blue-eyed choir leader who’s also infatuated with Sebastian Webster and his religious desire to reject the “sclerotic modern world” (a quote from Webster’s novel that is repeated ad nauseam) and become “World-Historical” (another oft-repeated quote from Webster).
It’s not a bad setup and it’s actually pretty readable. I didn’t want to throw it out the window, like A Little Life. It’s not categorized as YA, but, like If We Were Villains, it’s a very YA novel in tone, pace, and writing style. But I’d have to say IWWV is a better book because at least it’s fun. And it has Shakespeare. TWCG is not fun. It’s one of those books that has an obvious author’s agenda. That’s not my assumption: Burton admitted it herself. In a March 2022 essay that Burton wrote for LitHub, she says that her book is “an homage to and subversion of” the campus novel.
It’s not the homage that grates, but the “subversion.” Lest you find yourself, like Laura, beguiled by aesthetics and atmosphere, the book hammers you with warnings: The campus is calcified in meaningless tradition. Virginia and her clique adopt an actual fascist as their artistic and spiritual role model. The school’s faculty is so clueless that no one notices Virginia is literally--and rather extravagantly--losing her mind.
All this obvious messaging wouldn’t be so bad if we’d ever had a chance to feel beguiled in the first place. There’s little here to attract even those with “a morbid longing for the picturesque.” Virginia is an unappealing and creepy fanatic who dresses like a Dickensian widow and whose religious beliefs swing between punitive orthodoxy and sour, self-pitying disillusion. Laura is a colorless sadsack who practically disappears from huge portions of the novel. The rest of the characters don’t deserve mention because they are so undeveloped.
The explosive confluence of spiritual fervor and adolescent passion is rich territory to mine for fiction, but Burton never delves into it. Her characters idolize Sebastian Webster and his mediocre teenage writings, but all of them (even the supposedly brilliant and devout Virginia) seem to have little interest in actual Christian theology and philosophy, and not much real (or even performative) faith---no one even goes to church on Sunday! Burton herself has a doctorate in theology from Oxford and writes extensively about religion, so this must be a deliberate, “subversive” choice: making it glaringly obvious to readers that everything about the choir clique is superficial. They’re just dumb kids, self-importantly playing around with dangerous delusions and not thinking of the consequences. Just like the Greek class, get it??
After YA-style forays into romantic rivalries, cruel social media pranks, and a leaked sex tape, the consequences come...and they’re unbelievable, excessive, and unearned (while also leaning offensively into the old “kill your gays” cliché). The big calamity happens so close to the end of the novel that readers have no chance to process it, so to make it feel “meaningful,” Burton ends the book with several heavy-handed pages of Laura’s rambling reflections about what she’s supposedly learned from all this drama and death, such as:
...sometimes you can decide to say no to the world; maybe you can even affirm it, even if you don’t believe it, deep down, even if you are old and wise enough to know how wrong you are, and maybe, Laura thinks, that’s what strength is.
Okaaaay.
I’m inclined to be hard on The World Cannot Give because Burton’s essays on campus novels and The Secret History were published right before its release, and so they were part of the publicity campaign for her book. And that’s where things get interesting.
She criticizes TSH for characters that are not “likeable” and “little more than aesthetic tropes“ who “lack any sense of internal conflict” and are also devoid of “human specificity.” She accuses the book of what she calls “bleak nihilism” and a “disdain for the dignity of human life itself.” And finally, she complains that “we never actually see anyone transformed,” and that TSH treats its readers “with chilling contempt.”
To write such pointed criticism of The Secret History while you are promoting your own version of The Secret History, is some remarkable chutzpah, especially when The World Cannot Give is guilty of nearly everything of which Burton accuses TSH. Not to mention it’s considerably more juvenile, less interesting, and with none of Donna Tartt’s exquisite writing or talent for plot development. If this is “subversion,” then I’ll take the “nihilism” of The Secret History any day.
In that Gawker piece, Burton elaborates:
As The Secret History, and I, enter our fourth decade, I reread the book, curious whether my adolescent revulsion was a function of my own immaturity or some kind of literary envy (after all, who doesn't want to write a fabulously successful debut novel about Greek-reading teenagers?)...at 31 no less than at 17, I am enough of an idealist to think that the only proper response to that world remains the same revulsion I felt then.
If The World Cannot Give is Burton’s answer to The Secret History, then I’d say immaturity and literary envy are things she still needs to work on.
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Links to the articles mentioned in this post:
LitHub: https://lithub.com/how-campus-novels-reveal-the-power-and-danger-of-pure-ideas/
Gawker: https://www.gawker.com/culture/tartt-for-tartts-sake-the-secret-history-at-30
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Dark Academia—A New Literary Aesthetic
Dark Academia—A New Literary Aesthetic
“Dark academia.” You may have seen this phrase being used by bookish influencers on TikTok or tagged onto writers’ mood boards on Twitter and Instagram. The phrase is generally accompanied by images in muted earthy tones and dark burgundy, often featuring cardigans with elbow patches and pleated skirts, dark wood furniture, hallowed halls of learning, and libraries full of cloth-bound tomes.…
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#A Discovery of Witches#aesthetic#Dark Academia#genre#ninth house#social media#subgenre#The Secret History#The World Cannot Give
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!!!!!!!! SAPPHIC DARK ACADEMIA BOOK REC !
The World Cannot Give by Tara Isabella Burton I s2g if this book doesn’t start the fandom revival I will produce all the fan art and fanfic MYSELF
#bookblr#book blog#litblr#the world cannot give#tara isabella burton#social creature#dark academia#the secret history
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angel sunshine for an angel sunshine | for @huhfeatjhope
#bts#btsgif#dailybts#rékagif#hoseok#jung hoseok#bts hoseok#jhope#btsjhope#usersky#bebbi... it's your birthday but honestly i am the one who got a present with you.#a lot has happened lately but u stayed in my life even tho i would have understood if you'd have decided to leave#i don't know what i did to deserve this but i am so thankful#thank you for not giving up on me#you are a blessing for many people in their life#you are the best person i've ever known and what you mean to me cannot be expressed by words#i love you and i wish you nothing but all the happiness and sunshine and warmth and love in this world#happy that even tho we are both terrible at texting back we still keep in touch and i can call you a dear friend#happy happy happy birthday darling! may you always stay the sunshine that you are!
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Title: The World Cannot Give | Author: Tara Isabella Burton | Publisher: Simon & Schuster (2022)
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I think it would really benefit people to internalize that mental illnesses are often chronic and not acute. Some of us will never be able to jump the hurdle of managing illness, much less sustaining a sense of normalcy. Many of us will never "recover," will never manage symptoms, will never even come close to appearing normal - and this is for any condition, even the ones labeled as "simple" disorders or "easy-to-manage" disorders.
It isn't a failure if you cannot manage your symptoms. It isn't a moral failure, and you aren't an awful person. You are human. There's only so much you can do before recognizing that you cannot lift the world. Give yourself the space to be ill because, functionally, you are.
#mental health#mental health advocacy#like... anxiety and depression are often concieved of as simple and easy to manage...#...but that isn't the case for so many of us. anxiety and depression just have a lot more research invested into them...#...and while i wish this were the case for literally every other condition it does alter people's perception of you to some extent...#...so while this is NOT solely about anxiety or depression it includes us...#...my anxiety and depression and PTSD have *destroyed* my life. this is chronic and will probably be life-long...#...and that isn't my fault. i've done the fucking work but guess what? that doesn't account for the fact that I Am Just ILL#the least we can do for each other is to be compassionate#be compassionate to those who cannot heal. be compassionate to the people who can't manage their lives. this world is scary enough#recognize that management of symptoms is something not all of us can do - even IF their condition is labeled as 'easy to manage'#i allowed myself to feel angry that i can't heal 'normally' and that was unfair as fuck toward myself#and i NEED people to internalize this so that MAYBE this could help somebody else who is where i was#i NEED them to understand that it's okay that they are where they are - sometimes shit just doesn't turn out how you expect or want#don't beat yourself over you being a person. you are struggling enough. you deserve to rest. just rest please#and just... give yourself space
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an uncomfortable truth is that if batman and all the batkids were kidnapped and it was up to alfred to save only one while all the others would perish, alfred would push the button to save bruce with no hesitation before the villain was even done talking
and even more uncomfortable truth is that bruce would eventually forgive him this
#listen i *like* this about him#u cannot talk about bruce and dick's or bruce and tim's fucked up relationship#without first acknowledging the OG first and foremost fucked up relationship that is bruce and alfred#it oroginates there bless#listen alfred lived with dick for a solid like 6-10 years depending on what age u wanna go with for dick#and dearly loves him and would give him the world. however. if it were dick or bruce he'd sell out dick in a heartbeat#and alfred was a key figure in tim's training and spent many weekends one on one. drove him back and forth to school#was his vigilante chauffer constantly before tim got the redbird and while tim lost access to the redbird#lived with tim for 6 months while tim's dad was in a coma. recommended tim move next door so tim could keep being robin#lived with tim 6 months during NML. lived with tim 6 months to a year as tim's personal valet during brentwood#+ many others and he would still sell out tim in a heartbeat for bruce
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also idc I love the citadel and all its wizard hubris I love the intersection of innovation and horror and progress and crushing others underfoot AND also clothes that magically put them on themselves and Citadel Made bouncy balls and secret societies and universities!!! and espresso and arcane discovery and and and
#worlds beyond number#yes citadel bad ALSO you cannot condemn the citadel wholeheartedly without understanding#that we are the citadel#(if you live in the 'west')#and I adore the depth of the depiction of wealth and excess but also knowledge and curiousity#the citadel is not the gatsby mansion. it is any college in the US#it is my university giving out free food and trinkets for no reason other than it is a wednesday#and there is beauty and joy in the science I study I try to understand and the resources available#AND there is abject horror in what has been crushed for millions of people to have this#and I am OBSESSED I love it as a setting in all its brutal honesty#wbn#anyway
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I am perhaps too willing to forgive Joel for anything and everything on the notion that the man is trying but I really resent the idea that it has him who failed Ellie in the last ep. especially having heard his speech to tommy in ep 6, and having recognized that all his perceived “failures” were situations within which he had no influence, how is this any different? the man has been half dead lying in a basement for a week for an injury he got trying to protect ellie, and still he dragged himself four miles out when she was hinted to be in danger. it is not joel that is failing ellie. it is the rest of humanity.
#the last of us#it’s the same reason I tend to justify a lot of Joel#that the world they live demands and takes certain things from them#just give him a fucking break ok#this is one of those things you simply cannot critize#tlou#mine
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yknow there’s so much bad shit out there in the world and so much of it is aimed at people like me and i spend so much of my time trying to understand it and document it and make sense of it but sometimes. sometimes i hear someone singing a duet with their pre-t voice and the harmonies are breathtaking and i just want to open my bedroom window and scream to the cars driving by that I LOVE US I LOVE US GOD I FUCKING LOVE US
#transmasculinity is so beautiful and sacred and irreplaceable and life giving and deeply worth protecting#seeing the joy and expression and care that flows out of and between us is the most important thing in the world to me#the second we lose sight of that i think we’re all fucked#you have to always always love the thing you’re protecting more than you hate the people you’re protecting it from#and i cannot express how much i love us and the ways we live our lives#trans man positivity#transmasc positivity#trans men#transmascs
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(I...I've never had a doll before)
#my art#critical role#critical role fanart#critical role spoilers#cr spoilers#bells hells#ashton greymoore#help I've been having so many feelings and I cannot express them#I want to throw things and I want to give them the world-
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rainy day
#dazai being himself and giving chuuya grey hairs#you know#the usual#just some bg study lol#bsd#bungou stray dogs#bsd fanart#dazai bsd#digital art#chuuya bsd#skk#ibispaintx#skk fanart#soukoku#to everyone wondering how in the world Dazai got up there#he climbed when Chuuya had his back turned for a millisecond#you cannot tell me Dazai doesnt do parkor
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you know what fuck you *movieifies your anime character*
#scott pilgrim takes off#gideon graves#scott pilgrim#gordon goose#fanart#scott pilgrim vs the world#spto fanart#sketching#i cannot believe they didn’t give him the mole thats one of the sluttiest things you can have#shame#and i like the weird hair from the movie more too so you know what#i did this tag
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the way you drew kokichi .. i think im ascending to the heavens .. i see the light .. chest collapsing .. heartbeat flatlining ..
oho, a Kokichi enjoyer!! tysm!! it was my first time drawing him at the time so im glad i didnt fail him. i dont want to fail any of the kyoto group. i love them all!! even w my clear favoritism
he's nice too, a bit more expressive than Noritoshi so i can finally draw something that isnt :| or >:( even if it isnt by much- i like him too
I like how he's both a dick but also kinda sweet. He's a different flavor of tsun... i can use this. my knowledge on him is limited but FROM WHAT I SAW IN THE WIKI OH MY GOD???????? OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!! KOKICHI!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
#muta kokichi#kokichi muta#mechamaru#kokichi muta x reader#mechamaru x reader#? i guess#double post lets go im tryna be as fast as lightning#woah a non noritoshi post... crazy.......#my hands feel tingly and weird#my blog is so yume centric that my one track mind made you a love interest right off the bat#fuck it. everyone's in love w you unless stated otherwise#congrats. youre a harem leader/protag now except i have a strong bias towards one guy unless asked abt someone else#AND I JUST FOUND OUT MORE ABT KOKICHI???? WHY AM I FUCKING CRYING????? DUDE WHAT THE FUCK#OH NO THIS IS NOT CORRECT.. IS THIS WHAT SHIBUYA ARC IS???? DUDE#IM GONNA RIP OUT MY HAIR. THIS CANNOT BE. I CANT FAWN OVER ANOTHER CHARACTER W SO LITTLE SCREEN TIME AND CONTENT GOD PLEASE#HE GIVES SO MANY VIBES..... LIKE FUCKED UP 'i'll sacrifice the world for you' VIBES AND ITS MAKING MY BRAIN KRCHAKKRCHAKKRCHACK#kokichi muta... another hidden gem.... wipes tear#we'll treat you right kokichi... sobs. there there
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