#gwendoline riley

[eternal--returned]

She painted a beguiling picture, if you were susceptible to that kind of thing: lonely only child; breathless little girl who had to do this and had to do that. I was not susceptible, but then nor did I ever quite feel that I was the intended audience when she took on like this. There was some other figure she'd conceived and was playing to. That's how it felt. Somebody beyond our life.

Gwendoline Riley ֍ My Phantoms (2021)

[saltwaterandstars]

JOMP BPC - 28th April - This Month's Favourite

This is a very well written book. It's also a deeply disturbing, claustrophobic book, with the two main characters locked together in an awful, toxic marriage. None of the characters are especially likeable, but they're utterly believable. The word that kept coming to me about the writing, about the characterisation, is unflinching.

[don-simon]

It's easier to outrun a bad father than a bad mother

Justine Jordan, in her review of My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley (Granta, 2021)

[thehappyscavenger]

Books Read May 2023

My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley

I keep hearing great things about Riley who I think is way better known in the UK than in North America. I believe My Phantoms was more of a crossover hit. It’s about the narrator, a middle aged London woman, and her awkward semi-estranged relationship, especially with her mother. It reminded me a lot of My Name is Lucy Barton in that the trauma is kind of vague but there is this nostalgic sense of pain overlaying the whole thing. Really liked this.

Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban

Loved this. It’s about two middle-aged strangers in London, a lonely book seller and a lonely children’s book author, who each come to the conclusion they need to free the turtles at the London aquarium. Short and sweet and sharp. Hoban isn’t a writer I’ve heard of before this but apparently he’s pretty well know in the U.K. Will def be reading more of him.

Biography of X by Catherine Lacey

A fictional biography of the artist X written by her widow, journalist C.M. Lucca. I had some mixed thought mostly positive feelings about this one. The background is an alternate history of the U.S. imagining a world in which the South willing segregated and the North became more liberal which I found fascinating. What didn’t work for me was Lacey re-purposing some real artists quotes to build up X, an iconoclastic artist. It was a bit weird to see quites I understood used like that. Still worth a read. Also my first book of 2023 that was published in 2023. 

Friday Black by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

LOVED THIS. A set of speculative fiction stories set in America. These are dark and often funny. I was kind of surprised I never heard of this before (I discovered this on a whats that book reddit post) and it was an NYT best seller. Totally up my alley. 

Search by Michelle Huneven

This is a fictionalized memoir supposedly written by a fictional memoirist and food critic as she joined her Universalist Unitarian’s search committee for a new minister. I thought this would be cuter than it was, about found family and oddballs but it’s something darker and more complex than that, about how groups are flawed, change is slow, and not everyone has pure intentions. Very interesting. I will be picking up more of Huneven for sure. 

An amazing month for reading choices! Possibly my best of 2023. 

[anokatony]

My Favorite Fiction I've Read in 2023

Another year. Here are my favorite fiction reads of 2023, and as always, fiction is all that really counts.     ‘Glassworks’ by Olivia Wolfgang-Smith – ‘Glassworks’ is an intriguing and endlessly fascinating quirky family saga with one family member of each of four generations involved with working with glass in one form or another. The situations that Olivia Wolfgang-Smith creates for her…

[reasonablemeanness]

What would a husband have looked like a way in to? Not life. She didn’t want that. Perhaps some private billet in life. A place she could feel was her rightful place, from where she could look out at other people less fearfully. That doesn’t sound so outlandish, does it? The trouble is, I think being let in to that place was meant to be it. To be recognized, welcomed, delivered . . . This was the model of so many of the situations my mother contrived for herself and then extolled. Her social whirl. Her house moves. Her holidays, later. But they never were ���it’. The inclusion would turn to exclusion, every time.

My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley

[motherbookerblog]

Book Review - My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley

⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4 out of 5. Years ago, I read Gwendoline Riley’s First Love and absolutely adored her writing. It was the kind of book that really works for me. Not an awful lot going on but an emotionally devastating character study. I was obsessed with it for a brief period of time but I kind of lost track of Gwendoline Riley. I had grand ideas of getting all of her past novels and buying…

[factoringprimes-blog]

Considering one’s life requires a horribly delicate determination, doesn’t it? To get to the truth, to the heart of the trouble. You wake and your dreams disband, in a mid-brain void. At the sink, in the street, other shadows crowd in: dim thugs (they are everywhere) who’d like you never to work anything out.

-First Love, Gwendoline Riley

[authorstalker]

My January & February Reads

Happy Place, Emily Henry - Welp, I didn't move from my couch for 4.5 hours and stayed up 3 hours past my bedtime (no regrets). It's a fast read thanks to the dual timelines, and all of the standard EH ingredients are in place: a dreamy/moody dude, complicated heroine, an enviable friend group, witty banter, angst galore. What stood out to me is Happy Place's potential to appeal to a wider variety of adult readers; we get to know the characters both in their easy-breezy early twenties as well as a decade later, when their personal and professional lives are far more complicated.

We All Want Impossible Things, Catherine Newman - Of course I was going to read a novel by the author of the all-time greatest Cup of Jo house tour. A coffee table covered in drawing paper? Adopt me, Catherine Newman! Thank you to Kerry for her relentless "Have you read the book yet??" texts that convinced me to bump it to the top of the pile. We All Want Impossible Things is SO good, like read-it-in-one-day good, laugh-sob-recommend-to-everyone good......it's a perfect book, in my opinion. Considering the subject matter, it is also hilarious. Super funny, super sad, my ideal novel. I loved it.

First Love, Gwendoline Riley - The writing is fantastic but the story is bleak. And somehow Edwyn never gets slapped across the face, which is what he deserves!

[riosslut]

i'm going to start writing fics again,

1. only fem or gn reader ! this is a sapphic blog :3

2. i will write for:

kathryn hahn

agatha harkness

claire debella

doc ock (olivia octavius)

aubrey plaza

rio vidal

cat adams

lenny busker

riley johnson

kate walsh

addison montgomery

the handler

caterina scorsone

amelia shepherd

stana katic

kate beckett

(if you'd like to request any other characters played by different actresses such as; gwendoline christie characters or vera farmiga characters let me know !!)

i write;

smut,

angst,

fluff

[neuroprincess]

☆ who do I write for ☆

RULES | TAGLIST | MASTERLIST

⤷ Abbott Elementary

Ava Coleman | Melissa Schemmenti

⤷ Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (CAOS)

Hilda Spellman | Lilith/Mary Wardwell | Zelda Spellman

⤷ Criminal Minds

Alex Blake | Elle Greenaway | Emily Prentiss | Jennifer Jareau | Penelope Garcia | Tara Lewis

⤷ Law & Order: SVU

Alex Cabot | Casey Novak | Liz Donnelly | Olivia Benson | Rita Calhoun

⤷ Resident Evil Village

Alcina Dimitrescu | Donna Beneviento

⤷ Star Trek

B'Elanna Torres | Christine Chapel | Deanna Troi | Kathryn Janeway | Kira Nerys | Number One (Una Chin-Riley)

⤷ The Lord of the Rings | The Hobbit

Arwen | Éowyn | Galadriel | Tauriel

⤷ Yellowjackets

Lottie Matthews | Misty Quigley | Natalie Scatorccio | Shauna Shipman

⤷ + Gwendoline Christie's characters

Brienne of Tarth | Larissa Weems

⤷ + Kathryn Hahn's characters

Agatha Harkness | Carla Dunkler | Claire Debella | Eve Fletcher | Olivia Octavius/Doctor Octopus

⤷ + extras

Brianna Hanson | Frankie Dart | Maura Isles | Natalia Boa Vista | Rebecca Welton

Updated Jun 2024

[eternal--returned]

My mother loved rules. She loved rules and codes and fixed expectations. I want to say—as a dog loves an airborne stick. Here was unleashed purpose. Freedom, of a sort. Here too was the comfort of the crowd, and of joining in. Of not feeling alone and in the wrong. In conversation—or attempted conversation—her sights seemed set on a similar prize. She enjoyed answering questions when she felt that she had the right answer, and approved answer. I understood that when I was very small, and could provide the prompts accordingly. Then talking to her was like a game, or a rhyme we were saying together.

Gwendoline Riley ֍ My Phantoms (2021)

[devitalise]

IMOOOOO don't look at the date don't perceive the fact that we're already 3 days into January + it's like a week past your birthday DON'T....... HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY ICON!! YOUR GOLDEN BIRTHDAY, 25 ON 25!! 🎇🎂✨💛 I hope your holiday/celebration/trip to NY was wonderful and your fully developed brain has been treating you well thus far 🧠 tacky of me to combine these messages but we're 25 y/o gals, we're efficient!! SO -- what were YOUR top 5s of 2023? movies, books, music - biggest surprise(s), biggest flop(s)? excited to see what on earth 25 y/o imo gets into this year 💭

OMG THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH CAS!! NEW YORK WAS INCREDIBLE!! i had theee best time my first ever solo trip and i learnt so much about myself and got to go to a bucket list place just amazing really! i took so many pictures i'm putting together a photo album of my 2023 which i'm really excited to look back on. i found some old family pictures recently and there's nothing like looking back at a HQ printed picture and just reliving that moment

you also caught me at the perfect moment as i'm in the middle of revamping my blog as i'll be changing my username at the end of the week.. scary. anyways my top 5!

books

their eyes were watching god by Zora Neale Hurston

fight night by Miriam Toews

my phantoms by Gwendoline Riley

ring shout by P. Djèlí Clark

sterling karat gold by Isabel Waidner

tv shows

i can't remember much of anything i watched at all LMAO. 1. succession for obvious reasons 2. interview with the vampire 3. and that's genuinely all i can remember let's blame the strike

movies

1. malignant 2. across the spiderverse 3. bottoms 4. bones and all 5. saw x

music

i don't think i posted my wrapped on tumblr i can't remember but my favourite releases of the year were 1. amaarae's fountain baby 2. tinashe's bb/ang3l 3. kali uchis' red moon in venus 4. kelela's raven 5. pinkpantheress' heaven knows

personal stuff

2023 was big for me in terms of being more vulnerable with my friends! i feel like i got so much closer with everyone in my life and feel like i actually have a community which has been really nice. there's a lot of promising things that should be coming to fruition this year career wise and i think saving for and planning a trip to New York for my 25th birthday was a milestone all of itself! i'm very excited for what this year has in store for me

[don-simon]

This is a brilliant portrait of mother-daughter relationship in which every encounter is a battle because both sides want more than the other will give, or something different.

Justine Jordan in her review of Gwendoline Riley's My Phantoms (Granta, 2021)

[sapphiccore]

Reading recommendation time for you 🐝🐝 Women writers only. I’ve included whether or not it’s easy to read, given that some of my followers might not be keen readers yet

I want a cosy romance that’s still quite clever, with stylish, witty prose. I want something that feels like a Nora Ephron movie. I want romance that’s not patronising - Happy All The Time by Laurie Colwin (slightly hard to read - kind of New York Timesy in style)

I’d like to read a literary coming-of-age that’s intellectually challenging and deals with love in a unique way. I like campus novels and a quirky narrative style, but I want it to feel very personal. - The Idiot (and its sequel, Either/Or) by Elif Batuman (may be a little hard to read especially because she references literature and philosophy a lot)

I want sparse, sleek prose that’s easy to read but I want it to make me think and feel. - The Vegetarian by Han Kang (I’d consider this easy to read in terms of style but it may seem confusing at times)

I want mother-daughter relationships, I want to be emotionally brutalised. Plot doesn’t matter as much as a painfully realistic approach to character description. I want to laugh and then realise it’s actually very sad. - My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley (pretty easy to read but not plot-driven)

I want to learn about other cultures and periods in time. I want to be swept away, taken on a journey - I want it to feel like a saga. - Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (easy to read, and gets easier because it moves forward through time periods)

I want non-fiction that’s dreamlike and almost poetic, the account of a woman coming to terms with her own weirdness. - Little Weirds by Jenny Slate (a tumblr favourite, very easy to read)

I want to read strange, magical short stories that are somehow achingly beautiful. I want to be upset and then uplifted over and over. - Her Body & Other Parties by Carmen Maria Marchado (quite an easy read) or No one Belongs Here More than You by Miranda July (a more difficult read but honestly amazing and I reread these often) or Orange World by Karen Russell (easy to read)

I want something dark, gory and horrible. A twisted, intoxicating fairytale that leaves me feeling repulsed and spooked. - Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor (definitely a little tricky to read and TWs for everything under the sun… but I haven’t met anyone who didn’t like it once they’d read it)

I just want something fun and easy to read omg what is this list - The View was Exhausting by Mikaella Clements & Onjuli Datta (easy to read)

Please try not to buy on Amazon xx

[anokatony]

'First Love' by Gwendoline Riley - “Considering one's life requires a horrible delicate determination, doesn't it?”

  ‘First Love’ by Gwendoline Riley   (2017) –  167 pages   Not many writers can write so genuinely about failure in intimate relationships across generations as Gwendoline Riley does in her novels. ‘First Love’ is an account of the sometimes affectionate, often toxic, marriage of Neve and Edwyn. Along the way we get Neve’s background with her parents in Gwendoline Riley’s usual disjointed abrupt…