#elif x elena

[blamemma]

Not sure if you answered this before but based on your latest bookish asks, what are your top book recommendations? 😌

i have definitely answered this before but cannot find it anywhere in my books tag oops so i dont think i ever tagged it correctly but oH NO a chance for me to talk about my favourite books what a shame???!!!!! anyway book recs under the cut x

ok so i'll try and do this succinctly cause i can talk about good books for hours and hours and what made me so enamoured with them so ok lets go.

bewilderment by richard powers - go into this knowing nothing apart from it centers around a single dad and his son who is concerned about animals and the climate crisis. do not google more about it, do not look for spoilers, just let powers take you on this slow journey of a father and son and all that comes with that....thrust it into the arms of my flatmate with these same words and he kept on asking me questions because he couldn't work out some things in the book and then one night at about 12:30am i get a knock on my bedroom door cause he finished it and we talked for hourssss about it.....just please....read it

at swim, two boys by jamie o'neill - no one is surprised to see this here, maybe look up some of the trigger warnings if there are things you avoid in books for this one, but yeah, two boys, dublin, in love with each other but not acting on their feelings, learning how to swim and forging a bond so strong :)) still thinking about it still aching

the seas by samantha hunt - i think she's under 200 pages?? if not only slightly over.....quick fast paced weird read about a fucked up girl who believes deep in her heart she's a mermaid, flew through this one, really weird concept that was explored thoroughly well

the idiot by elif batuman - i often forget about this one because i read it during the hazy depressed days of first year uni but i know it shaped me, i know it clawed at me, and i know i really want to re-read it soon....a good book if ur lost in ur twenties i think xx

drive your plow over the bones of the dead by olga tokarczuk - much like bewilderment, dont google this one for more than the synopsis and let urself wade through the first 50 pages cause god from there....chefs kiss....a feminist murder mystery fuck YES (and thats a really simple description of what it is)

crossroads by jonathan franzen - aight so you take a heavy religious family with a pastor for a father but ooft the father is cheating on his wife and the son is addicted to drugs and the daughters had enough of her family and is in love with someone she shouldn't be and the mothers done some questionable shit in her past......yeah thats MY kinda family saga....each chapter follows a different member of the family and through these lil snippets u really start to see the inevitable breakdown of a family that on the outside looks perfect

babel by r.f. kuang - look, i gotta give it to the tiktok girlies here......they're onto something here......devoured this beast of a book like there was no tomorrow and went through a full array of emotions with all the characters.....superb book, truly deserves all the hype its been given

(lol reading back through all these and i think what we can comfortably say is i LOVE a sad book keep ur happy emotions away from me)

HONORABLE MENTIONS GO TO: mayflies by andrew o'hagan; the death of vivek oji by akwaeke emezi; shuggie bain by douglas stuart; my brilliant friend by elena ferrante (can not yet recommend the full quartet because i've only read the first two....but yeah.....good shit)

[unhingedera]

closed: @invxctusx​

from: bullet #10 of this post

perplexed. shocked. hurt.

elena doesn’t even know the perfect word to describe this bomb her girlfriend--well, he ex now, dropped on her over lunch for the reason that they don’t have time for each other anymore, that her career has taken her away from the other, which something the woman hasn’t noticed at all. she keeps replaying the past month, or the fights they’ve had that might’ve been the switch for the other woman. she did everything for this to work, moved from new york and left a lot of close friends behind for her. she cut off a deal with a studio which she worked so hard for months just to get to be a part of just to support the woman with her career. 

where did she go wrong?

weeks into the breakup yet she keeps asking herself. funny how they just watched time freak a couple of days ago. recalling such events with a time machine would be helpful. not that she wanted to make everything as perfect as she could, but she just wanted to know the answer to the question that’s bugged her for so long. she just needs an answer, that’s all.

however during the times when she drinks her soul away after spending most of the day at the studio writing songs (which would probably never make it in the album, if she ever decides to put one out at this point), she had one person who remained by her side, someone who was on her speed dial so she could either invite her to join her on drowning her sorrows or to just pick her up because she’s drunk out of her mind and she just couldn’t distinguish the difference of her car from the others anymore.

elif’s pretty much the only positive thing she’s got in her life lately, besides her music. she never left her side from the very first time she just randomly picked her out of her friends on her contacts list that one night. it felt like a routine now, yet she’s never heard any bit of complaint from the other.

now, she just wanted to hang out with her, sober, this time. for a change, right?

as soon as her recording session was done, the musician finds her way out in the back of the studio and dials the woman’s number. a couple of rings and she immediately speaks when the other picks up. “before you say anything, i’m not drunk or shit, i promise.” she shoves her hand in her jacket’s pocket as she quickly thinks of what to say next. she shouldn’t be this lost for words, she practiced this in her head. “i’m just wondering if you’re doing anything tonight--well, even though we both know i’m on your timetable now. anyway....” she takes a deep sigh. “yeah, i heard there’s a drive-in theater close to the studio and they’re showing erm....moonstruck. are you down?”