gorgeous, and I was not always in the mood for it

okay so this has been on my shelf since 2019 and I finally did it, and the answer is: it's beautiful and I was rarely in the right headspace for it, which is a me thing and also a bit of a book thing.

the writing is BEAUTIFUL. like actually, not "beautiful" the way people say about books that just have short sentences in them. she does the Chelsea Hotel and I could smell it. she does being twenty and broke in New York and somehow it doesn't come out romantic even though everybody else who writes about being twenty and broke in New York makes it come out romantic (it's the coats. she is always so cold. nobody else ever mentions being cold).

where I struggled: it's one long soft voice. no gear change, no volume, just the same hush the whole way through, and by the middle I caught myself skimming and then feeling guilty and going back (I did go back) (mostly).

also, and I know this is unfair, I don't know half the people. she'll drop a name like it's a small bomb going off and I'm sitting there like, is that someone I'm meant to know?? and then I'm on my phone and I've lost the thread entirely. Steph says just let it wash over you and she's right and I can't, I have to know who everyone is, it's a sickness.

the Robert stuff though. the way that she writes about him. she never once tries to explain what the relationship was, she just shows you two people who kept choosing each other in a way that had nothing to do with what it was supposed to be called. the necklace!! the drawings he makes for her!! I did the last thirty pages in one go and then had to stop and look at the wall for a bit.

my copy is secondhand and somebody has underlined about nine sentences in the opening chapter and then given up completely, which I found weirdly comforting? mate, same. Biscuit sat on it in August and the cover has a crease down the middle now and I've decided that's character.

mum asked what I was reading and I said it's about two artists in New York in the seventies and she said "is that the one with the drugs" and honestly, mum, they were all the one with the drugs.

seven, because I keep insisting on being honest on this website. it's a nine for the prose and about a five for how much I wanted to pick it up on a Tuesday after work, and seven is where those two land in my head. would recommend if you're in a slow patch and want somewhere to sink. would NOT recommend for breaking a reading slump, it will finish you off completely.