August 14, 2020 – August 15, 2020

I thought I would throw up several times while reading this.

I hate feeling helpless. The worst times in my life were when I had no control over what was happening to me, and watching – no – experiencing with the characters their own traps created almost more tension in me than my stomach could handle.

Still though, from the other books I felt that it would have a good ending, that wrongs would be righted and such – but after what happened to Jane at the end of the last book I knew that there was a very real possibility that something terrible would still happen.

It didn’t, but that’s because the terrible thing had happened earlier in the book. When she found out about her husband’s previous sex life I shrunk away from him as well. A horrid “maybe I never really knew him at all” feeling sunk into me – but I was not as worthy as Jane. She thought about him and their marriage the whole time.

She feels things, but she doesn’t just loose it like I do. I envy her control- though I did feel like I had finally let out a breath that Jane had been holding inside as well when she finally broke down in sobs. If she had done so the night he told her, it would not have been so cleansing. But by that point she had already decided to love and trust him, and to allow herself to feel those things that would come naturally to her.

But without him not blaming her for not understanding him and the situation he had been in when he was younger, without him doing all in his power to show his devotion while not pressuring her – that cry would not have been the moment that healed her, and she probably would have lost it when she saw the whore at the trial.

The phrase that keeps coming to me is that he gave her a safe place to feel unsafe. I have this image in my head that they are a purple dot, but when this happened they separated into a red outline of a circle with a blue dot in the middle, where Jane was the dot and Vincent was the circle. He didn’t just expand indefinitely, taking away his love and esteem for her, but he didn’t come closer until she was ready either. But the most important thing was the image of the dot inside the circle. Not next to, but still having him wrapped around her, a part of the picture that couldn’t be separated. That he had created a place for her to feel unsafe until she felt safe enough to let him back in again.

A safe place to feel unsafe.

In a horrible, real life way, it was a good thing that Vincent’s father decided to force him to tell her about when he was younger, because it opened their relationship to a level of honesty they wouldn’t have had. The shame he felt over it never would have let him tell her, but it would have festered like these types of secrets do. He would always have the question of “she says she loves me, but if she knew this one thing about me, would she still?”

I was assured that these books would be safe for me because Jane and Vincent stay together, and honestly that knowledge is the best gift anyone could have given me. They go through junk* (insert your own level of expletive) but they pull through to the other side with their marriage stronger than before.

Vincent is not too “perfect” – he has some major problems like we saw in the last book and this one – but he is raised to the same ideal of “look men! When the love of your life finds out you visited a hooker from 16-20 THIS is how you respond!” that Nathaniel also was in The Calculated Stars, only his was “listen up guys! THIS is how you support your wife’s professional and intellectual ambition!”

I started the book RIGHT after I finished the last one because I had to see that she was ok. She was so broken… they both were. But this book didn’t end in such a way that I’m going to choke if I can’t see that things are going to be ok for them.

Which is good because it’s on hold.

August 12, 2020 – August 14, 2020

I have no words.

Update August 15, 2020:
One of the most wonderful periods of my life was the summer between my senior and super senior year (why do I suddenly feel a surge of shame saying that? I thought I was over this.)

Amit would meet me at the base of the Elephant Stairs and we would walk through campus to the sciency buildings. He was working that summer for one of the physics professors doing modeling stuff and I was working in the geology department for a professor doing planetary science stuff (see my review for The Calculating Stars).

For the most part he worked on his laptop over in Rockefeller and I would work in the lab (just a room with computers) with two grade students, but there were days where they were gone and it was just me.

And those were the days when Amit would bring his laptop to my “lab” and we would program next to each other.

It was one of the most treasured times of my life.

I miss it every day.

August 10, 2020 – August 12, 2020

This book was fun and I was glad for how it turned out.

I honestly felt like the fun tension between her and perceived jerk guy who turned out to just be impassioned artist guy have the strongest hint for who her true love would be, but the other guy was so sensible and obviously wanted her and everything was shaping out that they would end up together that I was honestly grateful that he completely ignored her and his promise so he could be an “honorable” man. It drove me crazy thinking that she was going to end up with him because he seemed so perfect and made her seem so naïve- like SHE had stuff to work through but that HE was just fine – the perfect sensible loving brother that she could care for and feel valued by – that is until there was something he really wanted to do, then he didn’t care about what it was she wanted.

I need to reread it to pick up on all the little moments she had with Mr. Vincent again. I think I read the part where she walked into the library four times- because I like smiling.