#heather o'neill

[luxe-pauvre]

I wanted my femininity to instead be something that spurred me towards ambition and adventure and philosophy and friendship and pride and excellence and independence. One that now makes me wake up in bed, feeling like an accomplished murderess.

Heather O’Neill, On the Feminine Urge to Murder

#Heather O'Neill #On the Feminine Urge to Murder

[hungryfictions]

in 2023 i am collecting book covers like so many colorful candies. all the info for these titles can be found on my goodreads acct :-)

#this is just a small selection chosen for their nice covers :) #book list #book recs #sophie mackintosh #wendy c ortiz #tom perrotta #dawn winter #mary hk choi #marcy dermansky #claire stanford #calvin kasulke #elaine hsieh chou #caitlin barasch #chelsea martin #heather o'neill #rebecca makkai #andrea abreu

[theghostwrites]

#peak unlikable women literature 💖 #heather o'neill #books #my edits #bookblr #favorite books shelf #when we lost our heads

[spindleprick]

As family legend had it, [her] first steps were ballet moves across the floor. Whereas most children take a few awkward and stumbling steps, she did a petit pas de chat. She walked around with her tiny ballet slippers, looking very much like a duck, with the ribbons trailing behind her like marks in the water. She performed for people.

When We Lost Our Heads, Heather O’Neill

#words #when we lost our heads #heather o'neill #babette: my sparkling diamond #gigi: my silhouette in colour #henriette: my beautiful age #katerina: my velveteen queen #silke: my forged diamond #zelda: my fatal attraction #serafine: my ivory tower

[sapphireshorelines]

from LitHub article 'She Said She Would Write the Essay Herself: Reading Virginia Woolf in Middle Age' by Heather O'Neill

#virginia woolf #room of one's own #reading virgina woolf #Heather O'Neill #gendered spaces #***

[dolorexquise]

“It’s interesting. Women are either one thing or the other. I am indisputably wicked and terrifying, and she is sheltered and pure. And yet we are guilty of exactly the same crime. Can’t we all just be a bit of both? I don’t think I was the one who came off the worse in the bargain, to be honest. I rather prefer being accused of being rotten. I think it has really allowed me a greater scope of freedom. I thank the heavens every day that I’m unmarriageable. It saves me from this banal spectacle of courtship. Where two people try to hide as much of their personalities from one another as possible.”

Heather O'Neill, When We Lost Our Heads

#Heather O'Neill #When we lost our heads #literature #prose #Goth #Canada #Quote #LGBT #Queer #Girls

[thevividgreenmoss]

Heather O'Neill, When We Lost Our Heads

#* #heather o'neill #when we lost our heads

[thegreatmystery]

"A woman's freedom is the most important thing in the world. It is the end that justifies all means. One day you will figure out how to be free."

Heather O'Neill

#Heather O'Neill #when we lost our heads #canlit

[lamajaoscura]

When we watch a horror film, the sight of a woman alone fills us with dread. We expect terrible things to happen to her. But she also fills us with a sense of supernatural expectation, because we know so little about what a single woman’s trajectory in life could possibly look like, without romance at the center of it. In days of yore, the woman alone would have been tied up and tossed in a river, nominally to ascertain whether she was a witch, but more simply just to get rid of her. Culturally, she remains an uneasy figure. It is not only men that are made uncomfortable by the idea of a woman existing beyond relationships—for women themselves this is an uncharted land.

Heather O’Neill, Why Are We So Afraid of Single Women (https://catapult.co/stories/heather-oneill-single-women-horror-films-men-alex-garland-a24-solitude-writing)

#heather o'neill #women in horror #single women

[mosscollector]

All those wonderful days when we would totally forget about everything and decide to be the happy losers that we were.

Heather O’Neill, Wisdom in Nonsense

#heather o'neill #wisdom in nonsense #happy #loser #sehnsucht

[luxe-pauvre]

Idealized femininity is often presented as a dead woman. So many murder mysteries we see on TV present us with the body of a naked virgin. Her body has been brutalized and violated. She went to her grave innocent, never having consented to sex. But femininity is not passive, nor is it gentle or kind or chaste. In Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects, the murderer is revealed to be a teenage girl. One who roller skates, eats candy and plays with a dollhouse. Her rage does not make her more masculine. In fact, she uses the teeth of her murder victims as tiles for the floor of her dollhouse. Similarly, the murderess in Alias Grace, is adept at quilting, and creates wild narrative patterns on them while in prison. It is by locating an extreme femininity that these protagonists are able to rage and become murderesses.

Heather O’Neill, On the Feminine Urge to Murder

#Heather O'Neill #On the Feminine Urge to Murder

[shirleywhere]

#heather o'neill #books #reading #canlit #afewofourfavouritethings

[theghostwrites]

"Marie felt an incredible coldness. She had stopped pursuing, even on an imaginary level, the one person she loved in the world. Sadie was no more. Sadie was dead to her. But she was not mourning Sadie, she was mourning the part of her that had ever loved Sadie. She had put aside a love for a father and now she was setting aside the love of her youth. In the coming days she knew she would become a monster. She stood on the balcony letting the metamorphosis happen."

When We Lost Our Heads - Heather O'Neill

#quotes #when we lost our heads #heather o'neill #books #bookblr

[spindleprick]

'You make everything into a sad story,' [She] said. 'And I mean that as a compliment. You always make me want to cry. That's the most beautiful thing: to cry for no reason at all, only because you are feeling someone else's sadness.'

When We Lost Our Heads, Heather O’Neill

#heather o'neill #words #sistp: dreaming dolls #when we lost our heads #alice: my lost star #izolda: my white widow #henriette: my beautiful age

[zeenabaybayanmakesbooks]

The Capital of Dreams by Heather O'Neill

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd., 2024

#work #finishedbooks #bookdesign #bookcovers #heather o'neill

[vellichor-d]

book review: lullabies for little criminals

when i tell you that i am obsessed with this book, i seriously mean it. from the second i read the first word to after i finished the last paragraph, heather o'neill's voice has been living inside my head and narrating my every action.

this is seriously one of, if not the best books i've ever read in my entire life. it follows a preteen girl named baby growing up in montreal with a very young father with a big heart and a big drug addiction. the book really asks the difficult questions, exploring what happens when a kid is forced to grow up too quickly.

to me, baby reminds me of someone pushing someone else up a tall hill on a sled, but when they reach the top, the hill is so narrow that the sled tips over, and before the person pushing can catch them, the one in the sled is barreling downhill with no control, all alone.

it was grueling and horrifying, but i also couldn't stop reading. the way that the author describes things, with such a matter-of-factness, but also with such poignant comparisons, every line felt like strange and intoxicating poetry.

(SPOILERS BELOW)

★★★★★

yeah, i had to give this book five stars. it might be my new favorite book now, or at least in the top five. it seriously spoke to me in a way that past books just haven't. when i was reading it, it didn't feel like i was reading a book. it felt like it was listening to somebody's brain and following somebody through their life, and i was just so wrapped up in it, even when i wasn't reading it. sometimes, just looking at the book made me think.

i like books that make me think. the entire thing just felt so anecdotal. i wasn't dealing with characters, i was dealing with people. the story was realistic, to the point where it felt like a memoir, and i kept accidentally seeing it from a lens of "this is real". this book didn't make it obvious that i was reading fiction.

the way that the situation with alphonse snowballed was such a disaster that i couldn't stop reading. the way that to baby, everything seemed so casual and run of the mill until it startlingly wasn't. the way that she processed things was so childlike, but the things she was going through made her think like an adult too early.

i would recommend this book to absolutely anyone who can withstand the difficult things talked about in this book. it's a beautiful book, and i'm definitely going to be rereading it many times in the future.

#bookblr #book review #book recommendations #heather o'neill #lullabies for little criminals #books #reading #literature