Regulus "I felt the betrayal of being seen unknowingly" Black

and

James "Can you look at someone, half in darkness, leave them there, and still love them?" Potter

mini reviews / 2023 sapphic contemporary releases

— the adult by bronwyn fischer

'the adult' is a "sad girl", coming-of-age novel following natalie as she moves to university. she develops a relationship with an older woman. it's primarily about this toxic relationship and the power disparity between the two, all while natalie is navigating stepping into the world for the first time

it was gentle, tender, and intimate. with a soft but vivid style of writing, fischer depicts the all-consuming power of first loves and heartbreaks. she captures post-adolescent confusion and the clumsy awkwardness of entering adulthood perfectly

— big swiss by jen beagin

the only way i know how to describe this book is eccentric—odd but full of charm. in ‘big swiss’, beagin completely deviates from the blueprint for trauma plots. rather than a burdening and bleak look into female trauma, this book is a wry, witty, and sexy dark comedy that delves into queer desire, therapy and medical biases, and coping with formative wounds

beagin presents us with two women who function as opposite models for processing trauma. our protagonist, greta, struggles with a tragic childhood incident. the love interest, flavia (aka big swiss), was brutally assaulted by a man. where big swiss maintains a pedantic approach to life and refuses to play the victim, greta allows her past trauma to shape the present, causing her to live a life void of comfort. these two opposing perspectives clash, creating a seductive and confronting whirlwind of a novel that borders on the absurd. it won't be for everyone, but it was definitely for me!!

Fave Five: Literary Fiction About College Students

The Adult by Bronwyn Fischer Sirens & Muses by Antonia Angress These Violent Delights by Micah Nemerever Old Enough by Haley Jakobson We Do What We Do in the Dark by Michelle Hart Bonus: Small Joys by Elvin James Mensah is about a college dropout

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resonant. from The Adult by Bronwyn Fischer

The Adult - Bronwyn Fischer

read my full review of the adult by bronwyn fischer here.

Eighteen-year-old Natalie has just arrived at her first year of university in Toronto, leaving her remote, forested hometown for the big, impersonal city. Everyone she encounters seems to know exactly who they are. Chatty, confident Clara from down the hall, who wants to be her friend; intense, determined Rachel from her poetry class, who is going to be a writer. Natalie doesn’t know what she wants. She reads advice listicles and watches videos online and thinks about how to fit in, how to really become someone, who that someone even is.

Just as she is trying to find her footing, she meets Nora, an older woman who takes an unexpected interest in her. Natalie is drawn magnetically into Nora’s orbit. She begins spending more and more of her time off-campus at Nora’s perfect home living in her beautiful, quiet world. She lies to her floormates about her absence, inventing a secret boyfriend called Paul, and carefully protects this intimate, sacred adulthood she is building for herself. But when it becomes clear that Nora is lying, too, her secrets begin to take an insidious shape in Natalie’s life, even as Natalie tries to look away. What, or who, is Nora hiding?

my review:

The Adult was an interesting read, in that I really enjoyed the writing but found the fast pace to be detrimental to the message of the book. This is saying a lot, considering that I am all for advocating for shorter books. However, after finishing the book and thinking about it, I think that’s my main issue with the story although I did enjoy it for the most part.

Natalie arrives at the University of Toronto from her small hometown, unsure of who she wants to be and how to find that out. Throughout her first couple of weeks, she meets so many people who seem sure of themselves, including Clara, the girl who lives down the hall from Natalie and insists on being her friend, and Rachel, a classmate and talented poet in her natural poetry class. When Natalie is approached by an older woman while sitting in the park one day, her life begins to change. She and Nora soon start a relationship, and Natalie finds herself happier or something similar.

I’ll start with the positives. I did like Natalie’s character and following her as our protagonist. She’s clearly struggling to come to terms with the fact that she’d be considered an adult now, especially since she has no idea what’s going on with her life. Everyone else seems so put together while she can’t even navigate a simple social interaction. I particularly liked the part where she goes to the dining hall with Clara and chooses apples and six packs of peanut butter as her first meal away from home; adulthood really is about feeding yourself everyday.

read my full review here.

The Adult

By Bronwyn Fischer.

Design by Kate Sinclair.

the fact that i'm no longer the same age as the protagonists of novels and films i once connected to is so heartbreaking. there was a time when I looked forward to turning their age. i did. and i also outgrew them. i continue to age, but they don't; never will. the immortality of fiction is beautiful, but cruel.

I really think they need to start teaching kids in schools that most blind people can see a little bit, most deaf people can hear a little bit, and most wheelchair users can walk a little bit. And they are still disabled.

Can you pull on my hair daddy? 🙈

source: maplemistyx

Please be normal

a bottom-tier autistic experience is being told throughout your entire childhood that you are just an overthinker when it comes to social situations and later finding out that your friends did, in fact, hate being around you and tried to communicate that through weird little hints

Reblogg if you’d use my boobs

"life doesnt get better, you just get stronger" does NOT include ages 11-17. life does in fact just get better from there. those years are dogshit. like, you do get stronger but its mostly just a factor of not being 11-17 anymore. positive thinking helps but it doesnt fix whatevers going on at 15, you have to brute force through that one raw