nymeth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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ladybusiness2013-09-18 06:02 pm
nymeth) wrote in ladybusiness2013-09-18 06:02 pm
Awash in a sea of feelings: a recs thread
I think we’re in need of a bit of bookish joy here at Lady Business, and nothing does the job like a good recs thread. So I’d like to ask you to help me put together a recommendations list of feelings-filled, emotionally powerful, heart-stomping books as a gift to our own Renay.
I’ll go first: very recently there was Meg Rosoff’s Picture Me Gone, which I actually blogged about today. The ending had me crying in a way I hadn’t in a long while, and the funny thing is that I can’t even quite tell you why. This isn’t a book with a tragic ending or anything of the sort — it’s a quiet story about the relationship between a father and a daughter and coming to terms with adult fallibility and growing up. Also, there’s a dog: an elderly white German Sheppard named Honey whose presence in the story punched me right in the heart. In case you’re wondering, she doesn’t die or anything like that. It’s just that Meg Rosoff managed to capture the love and the vulnerability present in human-animal relationships in a way I hadn’t seen any writer who isn’t Kij Johnson do.
The same week I read Picture Me Gone I read Philippa Pearce’s A Dog So Small, which means there was a lot of crying over fictional dogs going on in my life. Again, this is a quiet and understated novel whose greatest strength lies in its subtlety and emotional precision. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been so immersed in children’s literature lately, but this is the kind of story that’s been affecting me the most: stories that acknowledge children’s depth of feeling and that allow the full emotional weight of small moments of connection to shine through. In A Dog So Small, that happens between a boy and his initially rejected puppy in the very final chapter, and when I closed the book I was a sobbing mess.
Of course, this isn’t the only kind of book that has the power to crush me. I’m not immune to a good old sad ending, or to a love story that gives me all the feels, or to being overtaken by a character’s sorrow or loneliness or fear. And of course that by “not immune” I really mean “I love it when that happens, GIVE ME ALL THE FEELS”.
So tell me: what was the last book that pulled all your emotional strings? What kind of story does this to you most often? What should we turn to the next time we want to find ourselves awash in a sea of feelings?
I’ll go first: very recently there was Meg Rosoff’s Picture Me Gone, which I actually blogged about today. The ending had me crying in a way I hadn’t in a long while, and the funny thing is that I can’t even quite tell you why. This isn’t a book with a tragic ending or anything of the sort — it’s a quiet story about the relationship between a father and a daughter and coming to terms with adult fallibility and growing up. Also, there’s a dog: an elderly white German Sheppard named Honey whose presence in the story punched me right in the heart. In case you’re wondering, she doesn’t die or anything like that. It’s just that Meg Rosoff managed to capture the love and the vulnerability present in human-animal relationships in a way I hadn’t seen any writer who isn’t Kij Johnson do.
The same week I read Picture Me Gone I read Philippa Pearce’s A Dog So Small, which means there was a lot of crying over fictional dogs going on in my life. Again, this is a quiet and understated novel whose greatest strength lies in its subtlety and emotional precision. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been so immersed in children’s literature lately, but this is the kind of story that’s been affecting me the most: stories that acknowledge children’s depth of feeling and that allow the full emotional weight of small moments of connection to shine through. In A Dog So Small, that happens between a boy and his initially rejected puppy in the very final chapter, and when I closed the book I was a sobbing mess.
Of course, this isn’t the only kind of book that has the power to crush me. I’m not immune to a good old sad ending, or to a love story that gives me all the feels, or to being overtaken by a character’s sorrow or loneliness or fear. And of course that by “not immune” I really mean “I love it when that happens, GIVE ME ALL THE FEELS”.
So tell me: what was the last book that pulled all your emotional strings? What kind of story does this to you most often? What should we turn to the next time we want to find ourselves awash in a sea of feelings?
no subject
(Anonymous) 2013-09-19 02:07 am (UTC)(link)I feel cruel for recommending this author here because the books are mostly out of print and rather expensive, but Antonia Forest. Because you mention emotional precision and subtlety and children's feelings, and she is just astonishingly good at all of those things. I had to move to another c1ountry recently, and I could only take about ten books and I took two Forests because I couldn't not. They're about an almost comically privileged English family who occasionally go on foxhunts, they're ridiculous, but they are perfect and heartbreaking and real.
(Was that Sea of Feelings enough?)
no subject
PS: I saw you mention where you were on Twitter the other day, and I just wanted to say that you're within reach of this book lover's paradise! Definitely worth a visit if you have the chance.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2013-09-20 02:07 am (UTC)(link)