#karen russell

[razorsadness]

People think of the green pastoral when they think of lovers in nature. Those English poets used the vales and streams to douse their lusts into verse. But the desert offers something that no forest brook or valley ever can: distance. A cloudless roominghouse for couples. Skies that will host any visitors' dreams with the bald hospitality of pure space. In terms of an ecology that can support two lovers in hot pursuit of each other, this is the place; everywhere you look, you'll find monuments to fevered longing. Craters beg for rain all year long. Moths haunt the succulents, winging sticky pollen from flower to flower.

—Karen Russell, from “The Bad Graft”

[bookcoversonly]

Title: St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves | Author: Karen Russell | Publisher: Vintage (2014)

[bookfirstlinetourney]

Round 1

Suppose I were to begin by saying that I had fallen in love with a color. Suppose I were to speak this as though it were a confession; suppose I shredded my napkin as we spoke. It began slowly. An appreciation, an affinity. Then, one day, it became more serious. Then (looking into an empty teacup, its bottom stained with thin brown excrement coiled into the shape of a sea horse) it became somehow personal.

-Bluets, Maggie Nelson

Our mother performed in starlight. Whose innovation this was I never discovered. Probably it was Chief Bigtree's idea, and it was a good one--to blank the follow spot and let a sharp moon cut across the sky, unchaperoned; to kill the microphone; to leave the stage lights' tin eyelids scrolled and give the tourists in the stands a chance to enjoy the darkness of our island; to encourage the whole stadium to gulp air along with Swamplandia!'s star performer, the world-famous alligator wrestler Hilola Bigtree.

-Swamplandia!, Karen Russell

When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.

-Circe, Madeline Miller

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Leopard Ray

* * * *

"To be a kid requires detective work. You have to piece together the entire universe from scratch." — Karen Russell, "The Ghost Birds" in The New Yorker (2021)

[imaginemirage]

She used to suffer these intense bouts of homesickness in her own bedroom. When she was very small, she would wake up tearing at her bedspread and shrieking, "I wanna go home! I wanna go home!" Which was distressing to all of us, of course, because she was home.

Karen Russell

[devilsskettle]

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell / Home from Beetlejuice / Haunting Olivia from St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves by Karen Russell

[bekah-reading]

26/50

4/5

This one was a bit all over the pace. I really like this Amazon Original Series; Trespass. These are horror novels, that are focused around environmental topics. This one definitely needs to be dived into blind.

27/50

4/5

I really enjoyed and loved the writing style. This short novella was historical fiction and told through letters. I really liked it.

[gennsoup]

Fresh air, the sight of trees--these are birthrights and pleasures that we seem bent on extinguishing. Some animals we've turned out to be. We have never in our species' history respected Nature's limits.

Karen Russell, Sleep Donation

[faerie-aurora]

“She used to suffer these intense bouts of homesickness in her own bedroom. When she was very small, she would wake up tearing at her bedspread and shrieking, “I wanna go home! I wanna go home!” Which was distressing to all of us, of course, because she was home.”

— Karen Russell, from St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves

[mariocki]

Hell High (Real Trouble, 1989)

"Let's get out of here while we still can."

"No."

"You're pushing our luck. She's had enough!"

"I said I'm gonna finish it."

"It's no good, man!"

"What do you owe her?"

"Look, there are limits. There are certain laws we can't break. This is real trouble, real jail. Our future!"

[nikkasqueaka]

[typewriter-worries]

[ Text ID: To be a kid requires difficult / detective work. You have to piece / together the entire universe from / scratch. ]

— Karen Russell, "The Ghost Birds" in The New Yorker (2021)

[judgingbooksbycovers]

The Antidote: A Novel

By Karen Russell.

[andreabadgley]

Swamplandia! I’m on a Karen Russell kick.

[bookcoversonly]

Title: Sleep Donation | Author: Karen Russell | Publisher: Vintage (2020)

[searching4sarahtonin]

You would probably love Karen Russell's short stories. Two books in particular: 'Vampires in the Lemon Grove' and 'St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves.' They're wild and surreal and many have female leads but romance isn't much of a theme in any of them.

Madeline L'Engle's 'Wrinkle in Time' series would also be right up your alley. Serious fantasy/scifi with female protagonists and the main relationships are of siblings. It kinda feels like a secular, 20th century Narnia.

Terry Pratchett's Discworld series has quite a few installations that you'd like, if you don't mind a heavy dose of silliness, sarcasm, puns and general not-taking-this-too-seriously. Start with 'Equal Rites'.

Not a book, but the TV series 'Renegade Nell' would also fit the bill and it's delightfully unhinged. More in the vein of historical magical realism, but otherwise everything you're looking for with a cherry on top.

Fantasy Novel Recommendations?

Hey yall! I've gotten SO big into reading novels, whenever I'm not working on my art or my video game I'm pouring into a new world!

But I keep getting frustrated with a lot of the fantasy novels I read, and I was pretty disappointed by Fourth Wing. Not that it was bad, there was a LOT that I found really interesting! Everything with the dragons in particular was really fascinating.

But... the romance subplot became the ENTIRE story and it was just really dull and frustrating to read. I loved so many things in the book, but that drove me so crazy I don't even think I'll read the second one.

If romance is the primary point, like Jane Austin novels? I'm totally fine with that! But... I don't really want it taking over completely in my fantasy novels.

Point is... I'm looking for fantasy novels with female leads, with minimal romance, or romance very much being secondary to the primary plot. Also if there can be little to no sex scenes, please and thank you. I'm not a prude, I just find a lot of it very boring. I come to books for stories, ya know?

I ADORED the Throne of Glass series, and any romance in there always stood secondary to the story, and felt pretty fluid and believable, so it never bothered me.

So yes, please give me any recommendations you have!! I'd love to check out new fantasy novels.

Anyway if you want any book recs yourself, these are some of my favorites: Throne of Glass series

Where the Crawdads Sing

This Is How You Lose The Time War

To Kill a Mockingbird