#baker hadley

[littleoases]

Hi kelly! I know you've answered this before but about baker's sexuality.

you have said that she would call herself a lesbian but that also it was to interpretation, but maybe we can explore more on that?

in the book we see both, hannah’s and baker's journeys, we see more of hannah and how she accepts herself as a lesbian, these books characters helped me with the same thing.

with baker we don't see her full journey as it is with hannah, but still we see her struggles. obviously both of then have the internalized homophobia, the religious guilt and their own struggles.

i really love baker, I see myself on her and to explore more of that on her as a lesbian (she's a lesbian to me) baker is basically a people's pleaser, we see that on the book, she has a lot on her plate, her relationship with her mom, the pressure the people of the school gives her as the team capitan and councils president. baker struggles with a lot of pressure and the one she gives herself because of it, she tries to be the best because that's what people expects of her.

baker as a lesbian with all of those struggles just made a lot of sense with her and the comphet. she needs to find the perfect boyfriend (ex clay) but she isn't happy with that relationship. yes, she does it bc of what happened with hannah and to "fix" what's wrong with her and the situation, that's why she distances herself of hannah, and the whole email situation.

baker being drunk most of the time and also no eating can be also see as she hurting herself. as a punishment, because of what she did, also to avoid to think about her and her sexuality.

I think about the scene after the prom a lot, hannah finding baker crying in the stairs, how that whole guilt can be also about her an her comphet. yes, she was feeling guilty about the hannah situation but also feeling guilty about how she pressure herself to do that, to prove herself something that didn't even work, didn't feel right, not like it did with hannah.

I would've loved to read more about baker and know her in a more deepest way, but I hope we get more things of her in the new release.

Anyway thank you for reading this!

You make a lot of great points here. These are things I've been thinking, too, especially when I was re-writing. I'll be interested to see what you make of the subtle changes to the Prom afterparty scene. I also think you'll be able to shape your opinion even more after you read This Must Be the Place. Stay tuned!!

[afknows]

Baker: *absolutely refuses to even speak about a homoerotic encounter with her best friend, is convinced she’ll be destroyed by the Lord himself for giving into impulse*

Baker literally 12 minutes later: Hannah, if i don’t have your entire vag in my mouth I will die

[duttonwestern]

my opinion on her name in the sky

[getwreckedddd]

"It's just us, right?"

Hannah walks to her. She touches her cheek and finds her eyes. There is a desperate light hanging on her pupils. A flicker of passion, a flicker of shame.

"It's just us."

Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky

[dearest-loveliest-elizabeth]

This book is so good wtf

But while the whole earth prepares for spring, Hannah feels a great anxiety in her heart, for something dangerous has grown in her, something she never planted or even wanted to plant.

It’s there. She knows it’s there. If she’s truthful with herself, she’s probably known all along. But now, as the days grow longer and the Garden District grows greener, she can actually see it. It has sprung up at last, and it refuses to be unseen.

She tells herself it’s passing. It’s temporary. It’s intensified only because she’s a senior and all of her emotions are heightened. It’s innocent. It’s typical for a girl her age. It’s no more or no less of a feeling than everyone else has had at 17.

But deep down, deep below the topsoil of her heart, she knows it’s not.

Still, she pushes it down inside of her, buries it as far as it can go, suffocates it in the space between her stomach and her heart. She tells herself that she is stronger, that she can fight it, that she has control. That no one has to know.

I can ignore it, she thinks. I can refuse to look at it. I can stomp on it every time it springs up within me.

So she lies to herself that everything is normal. That she is normal. She carries herself through the end of the school week by refusing to acknowledge it. By refusing to align her heart with the growing sunlight and the nurturing heat and the flowering plants and the tall, proud trees.

Book: Her Name in the Sky

[spvilers]

HER NAME IN THE SKY.

“Hannah wants to sit up off her towel and look across her friend's lined-up bodies, frozen in time beneath the sky, and she wants to pull Baker out of their midst, out of time, and walk with her along the shoreline, following the infinite ocean, nothing moving on the whole green earth except for the two of them and the water and the sky.”

- Kelly Quindlen, Her Name in the Sky

[munificentrefuge]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Some Angsty Bakerhannah for your Good Friday reading pleasure!

[misplaced4everpartners]

Labyrinth by Taylor Swift is so Hannah and Baker coded….