I'm afraid to ask why! These people are NOT handling things properly!

Oh no, I don't mean in the sense that I'm like them (I'm not) but I recognise aspects of myself and my experiences (or rather some emotional baggage)

Well I hope it's not all the abuse and related psychological damage that you recognize but rather the general awkwardness of youth and first love!

It's neither, let's keep it at that

You mean you don't want to share the intimate details of your life with strangers on an online forum, like I do every 5 posts?? How weird of you! ;)

Anyway, just finished it. Not sure I would recommend it to anyone, a bit too trauma porn-y and I have an allergic reaction to dominance in relationships so found those bits very frustrating, but the writing is quite good, it's not boring and it certainly does get an emotional reaction out of you.

Let's see what she comes up with next.

Noo, that's just me having the morning grumps and being too tired to explain things. I relate to the feeling of alienation and how it can eat away at your self esteem even when you try to hide it behind icy haughtiness (like Marianne) or silly humour (like me). And then how that causes a disproportionate feeling of gratitude when someone notices you for who you are, and the difficult social dynamics, and how all those issues can get in the way of love and intimacy etc. I think she nailed that. I didn't really find it trauma porny and I thought the dominance stuff was integral to the story, but it frustrated me too

Ahh, thanks for the explanation. Yeah she did a lot of stuff right, but yes, considering the motor of the story is abuse and the resultant "need" for dominance it was just difficult for me to enjoy, although technically it was impressive storytelling.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/21KUoeaiI+L.jpg
Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Calvino is a magician of language.

Impressive quotes, but I find it difficult to read a book of that kind of intensity/ density. I used to have a book by him, unread, but I *checks shelves* I think I gave it away. :(
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https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FBAFEj517...ne-Lawless.gif

Not the edition that I'm reading, but this image shows the route of Greene's travels. A morose Catholic, Greene went through Mexico in 1938, grumbling about what he saw. On just p.48 he goes to a cock-fight and writes, "That, I think, was the day I began to hate the Mexicans" - and it gets worse from there on. Sunstroke, agonising days riding a donkey through the mountains, and a case of dysentery do little to cheer him up.

I can respect that. Intense, provocative material is my jam (though it can make for a slow read because you have to take breaks on account of being so gobsmacked), but dense material can definitely be uninvitingly challenging in an unnecessary way. Invisible Cities contains (literal) worlds primed for micro and macroanalysis, but the gorgeous poetry prose, the bite-sized form, and the book's general shortness make it inviting enough to make you want to give it the attention that it deserves. Then you can't help but stick around for the philosophical quandaries. I only know of Calvino based on the reputation of If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (which I've started but didn't finish because I was too busy at the time, ironically enough), so I can't say for sure how distinct that is from what you've read though.