I HATE IT

I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE THIS I HATE THIS I HATE IT

I meant to post earlier than this.  Sorry about that.  Honestly, I'm only posting right now because I really, really need to just...just...christ.  Jesus effing christ.

IF YOU HAPPEN TO BE LOOKING FOR THREE-HUNDRED AND TWENTY-TWO PAGES OF PURE, UNADULTERATED SADNESS, MISFORTUNE, AND PESSIMISM, I IMPLORE YOU TO READ THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US BY REYNA GRANDE.  YOU WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.

HOWEVER, IF YOU - LIKE ME - JUST NEED TO READ AND ANNOTATE FOR SOPHOMORE HONORS ENGLISH PURPOSES, YOU WILL BE VERY.  VERY.  DISAPPOINTED.

EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS BOOK IS DISAPPOINTING.

"HOW DO WE ESCAPE THIS LABYRINTH OF SUFFERING?"

IS A QUESTION THIS BOOK SHOULD ASK

INSTEAD OF IMPLYING EVERY CHANCE IT GETS

THAT THERE IS NO ESCAPE

EVER.

I WAS GOING TO FINISH IT TODAY, BUT I JUST...I JUST...CAN'T.  TOO MUCH.  I THINK I MIGHT CRY.

I NEVER CRY.

I FEEL SO HELPLESS.

I'm at page 275 right now, which is to say, very close to the end.  I do not have very many chapters to go.  But I just..can't...I mean...why...I HATE THIS.

The bio on the back cover reads:
Reyna Grande vividly brings to life her tumultuous early years in this "compelling . . . unvarnished, resonant" (BookPage) story of a childhood spent torn between two parents and two countries. As her parents make the dangerous trek across the Mexican border to "El Otro Lado" (The Other Side) in pursuit of the American dream, Reyna and her siblings are forced into the already overburdened household of their stern grandmother. When their mother at last returns, Reyna prepares for her own journey to "El Otro Lado" to live with the man who has haunted her imagination for years, her long-absent father.
Funny, heartbreaking, and lyrical, The Distance Between Us poignantly captures the confusion and contradictions of childhood, reminding us that the joys and sorrows we experience are imprinted on the heart forever, calling out to us of those places we first called home.

That is inaccurate.  That is not what this book is about.  This book is abandoned child after abandoned child.  It is "scam artist" boys, who love you long enough for a good makeout session and never look at you again.  It's a mother who leaves and leaves and leaves, and a father who is both always and never present.  It's about always trying to please those whom you love, but whom refuse to be pleased.  It's a constant state of seeing everything you've ever wanted just beyond your fingertips, but the moment you reach out and touch it, it slips completely away.  This book is never being able to repair what is broken, but always trying and failing, trying and failing, trying and failing.  This book is dropping out of college to marry the girl of your dreams, only so that eighteen months, two new jobs and a baby boy later, you can get divorced again, completely and irrevocably robbed of your ambitions.  This book is constant betrayal, and endless loss.  This book is lost hope and broken dreams.

This book is fucking depressing.

I know I should just read it today and get it over with (and maybe finish annotating and start looking for artifacts?) but I recently restarted Homestuck, and I'm close to beating Paper Mario, and my room needs cleaning, and my posters need hanging, and I have movies from the library to watch, and books from my girlfriend to read, and I managed to buy Landline by Rainbow Rowell too, which promises to be much more upbeat than this because she's who wrote Attachments and Eleanor & Park, and fuck it all, I mean, "rainbow" is in her name, isn't it?  So I have other things to do.

Let's do those things.

And also, it's raining, so that's good.

-Allie