“Two girls among the green, between trees. Hands on hips, heads tipped back, eyes searching sky. Six years before Taylor Swift announced her eighth studio album by posting a photo of herself standing in a forest, she posted another photo of a forest holding two women, which she has since deleted from her grid. Don’t stress, it’s not gone. It’s just entered the next stage in the celebrity Instagram life cycle, which means that it’s truly ours now, property of the stans with the prescience to preserve.”

Everyone thinks they know what love is, but most have no clue. Reading hooks' works on love, you’ll likely discover, for the most part, that nobody loves you. Not your family, not your friends, not your “lover.” You also might discover that you don’t love anyone either.

“Upon learning that Louisa May Alcott spent more than a decade moonlighting as a sordid, heady mix of Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Brontë, I dove eagerly into this secret canon.”

Everyone thinks they know what love is, but most have no clue. Reading hooks' works on love, you’ll likely discover, for the most part, that nobody loves you. Not your family, not your friends, not your “lover.” You also might discover that you don’t love anyone either.

My love affair with monsters can be traced to my eccentric childhood, of course.

It helps to know, especially
when you’re hiding.

Suada stood in her curlers at the kitchen table and cut with scissors into a cardboard box. Her brother, who had remained with his family in Norway even after the war had ended, had sent her a package for her birthday. She ripped the last bit of the tape with her fingers and opened the flaps. 

She grins to herself, then, since they friended
each other at some point during that night,
she opens messenger and starts to write
a message: “Hi. It’s been a while
but I’d still like to be your friend.”

P and Aliza fought often, and in these battles P always managed to leave reminders of himself. Like the time I found her with three of his fingers imprinted on her right cheek.