In] Alone With You, Marisa Silver explores the impact of collateral damage, whether sustained in war or life - brisk and keenly observed - Silver's characters manage somehow to emerge as credible realists, unafraid of the rigors of making do. Even in the darkest moments, their stories are illuminating as they find the courage to face who they are. The way he said this made her feel dismissed. She wanted to correct him. She wanted to be able to change her mind, wanted him to change her mind. Although he seemed to have convictions, he had the same careless quality as Shelly, a confidence that allowed them both to ride along above the dismal concerns of everyone else. Why did she care so much? Her care felt like a disfigurement, something that made it necessary for people like Shelly and Toby to distance themselves from her. Her care felt like something that would drag down the progress of human development. It made her an awkward, embarrassing person who asked what book you were reading when all you wanted to do was go to the bathroom. She felt her face flush and she returned to her room. She changed into her nightclothes and got into bed and turned off the lamp, but she was too agitated to sleep. It’s just, if someone walked up to me on the street and started talking about communism or socialism, I wouldn’t stop to have a conversation.”

Mother-daughter relationships are featured prominently throughout Alone With You. In many instances, the daughter ends up behaving more like a mother figure. Compare these relationships in two or more stories. What do they share, and how are they different? The more films I made, the more I began to recognize that the kinds of stories I wanted to tell and the ways in which I wanted to tell those stories would not be supported easily in the medium of film. In general, film works with broader strokes and I’m interested in all the little in between moments, the tiny gestures and notions that are the smallest atoms of human interaction. Writing gives me the opportunity to find the large meaning in the small instances. And it also gives me the opportunity to spend a lot of time by myself. Which I quite like! You don’t have to worry about that,” he said, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. “It’ll all come out in the end.”Because we have agreed, collectively, that to proceed without knowledge or understanding is a stupid kind of bravery, an impulsive kind of blindness, but that to be alone without wonder or curiosity is to chip away any possible value we might discover in existing.” Think the vibes of Better Than The Movies meets the grumpy x sunshine dynamic and you have All Alone With You ― a spectacular YA romance about friendship, music, navigating anxiety & most of all, love! Eloise Deane and Austin Yang easily captured the banter and sweetness of the grumpy x sunshine pairing and with what's ultimately a very character-driven story, this was a wonderful YA that you should absolutely have on your radar! ༘♡ ⋆˚.ೃ࿐ but on the other hand, i cant stop thinking about this? as unlikely as it sounds given the negatives i just listed, there are some true moments of beauty in this. most of them coming from aldo and how his brain works. the way he views the world and describes how things fit mathematically is really quite something. i could listen to him talk about bees all day long. Aldo was thinking about quantum groups. Specifically, hexagons. It was Aldo’s firm belief that the hexagon was the most significant form in nature, not purely because of his fondness for the Apis—commonly known as the honeybee—but not entirely unrelated. Many people were typically unaware of how many kinds of bees there were. The bumblebee was slow and stupid enough to be petted, which was sort of sweet, though not quite as interesting.

For some reason, she believed him. She was sure that he had all the information: perhaps his wife had had enough of his meanness; perhaps she had a lover; maybe she didn’t like the fact that he was the kind of man who cared about fashion. Vivian believed that he understood the facts, but that, still, he didn’t know. You look like a fish, sweetheart,” he said, and he put his lips to her cheek and blew out puffs of air until she giggled. For a second, Vivian caught a glimpse of what her mother had looked like as a little girl.I particularly enjoyed Eloise’s character arc throughout this book. She has anxiety, and she’s virtually been friendless since her two best friends abandoned her during a period of severe depression. Hanging out with Austin is the last thing she wants to do, especially since he has such a sunny personality compared to her grumpy one, but she grows to learn that isolating yourself for so long has more adverse effects and spending time with other people can, actually, lift your spirits. Yes, something like that.” There was never an easy way to explain what he was working on. It was nice of his father to ask, but they both knew that anything Aldo had to say was mostly lost on him. “Everything okay, Dad?” You masterfully capture many different ages, genders and perspectives. How do you get into the voice of each character? I don’t think I worry so much about living up to others’ expectations as I think about making sure that my writing is developing, that I am integrating what I am learning through my own work, through reading, and through generally living so that each book represents some kind of step forward for me personally and artistically. I want my writing to reflect the fact that as I live, I think more carefully and hopefully more deeply about what writing can be and about what being alive is. For Regan, people are predictable and tedious, including and perhaps especially herself. She copes with the dreariness of existence by living impulsively, imagining a new, alternate timeline being created in the wake of every rash decision.

The dynamics between Austin and Eloise were PERFECT. Reverse grumpy x sunshine at its finest. I loved the way they balanced each other out and the way they went from strangers to friends to having a relationship was so sweet. Filled with some teenage drama and a little bit of angst, I thought it was great for the YA category (and there’s only kisses!). When you learn a new word, you suddenly see it everywhere. The mind comforts itself by believing this to be coincidence but isn’t—it’s ignorance falling away. Your future self will always see what your present self is blind to. This is the problem with mortality, which is in fact a problem of time.” It was at moments like this, high enough to inhale the promise of risk, that the whittled lines of city streets brought out his lingering melancholy; that l'appel du vide, the call of the void.” In “Leap,” why does Patsy jump? How is this symbolic? Why do Sheila and Colin remain married? Do you think their relationship has become a charade, or that it will ever work again? When I’m focused on leveling my rogue, I don’t have to think about going to LifeCare this weekend. I don’t have to think about Lydie and Jordan, best friends forever. I don’t have to think about anything. Because that’s the beauty of video games. You can slip into a different world. You can become someone else. You can be a hero—or a villain.

I really think you’ll love LifeCare,” Ms. Holiday says once she realizes I’m not going to reply, and nudges the pamphlet closer. “It’s a great program—” Marisa Silver’s novel The God of War, earned great acclaim and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Read it as well, and discuss the differences in her style and language. Is her writing different in the novel than it was in short stories? I also really liked Marianne! I didn’t expect to care this much about this old woman, but her dynamic with Eloise was also super enjoyable! I loved that they were so similar, but their dynamic ended up being kind of similar to Eloise and Austin’s: they pushed each other’s buttons, but always in a joking, friendly way. I also really liked seeing Marianne, Austin and Eloise hanging out all together. Mm.” Masso already knew that, but the asking was another ritual. “What are you thinking about today?”

How does Connie’s family contrast with the family with car trouble in “Three Girls”? Discuss the differences between the families and their “three girls.” Which family does the title of the story refer to? Eloise partly choosing what university to go to because of her boyfriend of 5 months was kinda lame, ngl. I wish there’d been more hints throughout the book that she wanted to go to that university, so that the choice didn’t seem to come out of nowhere and be so influenced by the fact that Austin was going to that uni too. which then infected the rest of his fingers. They drummed against the threading of his jeans, impatient, while his left hand continued the motion of faux-smoking.I lift my eyes from the handout, my stomach already twisting and turning into little anxiety knots. “How many hours?”