*grips the sink and looks at the mirror with blood shot eyes* adams government job could be secret because it’s related to magic and magician Adam is not dead
i truly truly believe he’s in his dana scully era, maggie can pry this theory from my grubby little hands. he didn’t go through all that turmoil about how much he loves magic but can’t let himself have it, just for him to give it up again. there’s no way he’s going to stop being magic, he’s obsessed with it. if he’s going to have a secret government job it has to be because of both his brain AND his magic. i think he was scouted by a new sector of the fbi or smth after he hacked into those government databases to keep tabs on ronan, and then i think they doubled down when they learned he was also psychic. i think he’s in an x-files job but for ley line weirdness. i think he goes around the country investigating ley line phenomena and making sure magical danger doesn’t breach containment, i think he solves unsolved ley mysteries that are haunting small towns, i think he scries on the regular and freaks out his weirdo coworkers. i think that he and ronan cross paths a lot while working and i think they pretend to not really know each other at work, and i think they think that’s really funny. i think he helps people who don’t know how to deal with the magic in their lives and i think he has a network of psychics in his roster to turn to when he needs some no-questions-asked advice. i think blue pesters him about his job and i think ronan jokes that if adam told her he’d have to kill her. i refuse pencil pusher adam and i refuse to believe he gave up magic !!!!
since you haven't asked for a particular genre of non fiction i'll be a little all over the place but if you have some area in particular let me know!!
the emperor of all maladies: a biography of cancer - siddhartha mukherjee. (science) exactly what it says on the tin. i read this probably a little too young under weird circumstances but it was SHOCKINGLY riveting for kid me. absolutely fascinating, and really well written for a book about...well, basically cancer! i don't know how to sell it except to say it still remains one of my most favourite books ever
ants among elephants: an untouchable family and the making of modern india - sujatha gidla. (autobiography | history) it's a biography about a dalit christian family from andhra pradesh and it's super compelling. obviously i can't speak with total authority about what that experienceTM is since it's soooo varied but AS someone from a dalit christian family from andhra pradesh it felt so so true down to minute details. the naxalite movement and its depiction is the part of the book that is more debated in critic circles but even then it is still an absolutely fascinating look into that complex history
curfewed night - basharat peer (memoir). peer is a journalist whose family was personally affected in the 90's during insurgency in indian-administered kashmir. good place to start to learn more about the conflict. it's a short read but super powerful. didn't know haider was partially adapted on this until recently!
a bunch of non-fiction graphic novel recs because i love non fiction graphic novels: alison bechdel's fun home i loved it soo soo so much and it kind of changed me in the last year of school lol, it's about many things but especially about her complicated father. persepolis by marjane satrapi, a wonderfull read on iran and feminism and satrapi herself. palestine by joe sacco which is about palestine through the eyes of joe sacco, a journalist, and gives you a glimpse of palestinian history as well as the conflict and its present day ramifications. munnu by malik sajad! this is also an autibiographical book on kashmir and an excellent importantl read. the author portrays the kashmiri people as the endangered hanguls. the concept was based on art spiegelman's maus which of course if you haven't read is itself an automatic recommendation.
a few non fiction essay collections that live rent free in my brain - arundhati roy's entire oeuvre of course, but especially an algebra of infinite justice (the collection, not just the essay of the same name). the education of a british protected child by chinua achebe is excellent in many brilliant ways, but especially the essays on language and literature are <33
Hey! I was curious on what your thoughts are on Chloe Gong, her writing, and the concept of very young others being published in general (some think its fine, some think younger authors are in a rush and that’s why some books are not up to par)?
I don't mind authors being published young. If you are talented then you deserve acclaim. Anshuman Mohan was in school when he wrote Potato Chips and it is an absolutely wonderful book about the education system and class disparity in India.
I have not read Gong's works, but I see her blurbing and praising a lot of questionable, even racist works (like the reverse racism fantasy) and I wonder if she reads a copy or if she just has to make up words of praise and put them to paper because she is a bestselling author.
What did you think about Adam apparently trying to talk himself out of being in love with Ronan when he went home to st Agnes every night?? It sounded so prosey but it didn’t feel like it was supported by the text? Like I felt the Opal story and CDTH did nothing to indicate that
omg sorry i only just saw this q !! but yeah idk i’ve been thinking a lot about that recently. i think with certain contexts it does make some sense to me? not that adam would want to stop loving ronan but that he’d feel like he should stop loving him. that ending things sooner rather than later felt like the safer thing to do for both of them, emotionally speaking. having said that, i feel like if we’d been in adam’s head at all through trkopal or dreamer trilogy, it would’ve made this information less surprising (another loss for the adam pov agenda rip). i have a lot of thoughts on this tho and i ended up writing a lot more than i intended to so i’m going to get into it under the cut !
ok so first off, i think in terms of adam’s arc in dreamer trilogy (or what we saw of it lol) it would make a lot more obvious sense for him to be having that dilemma. at that point he’s actually living in this version of himself that can’t coexist with the version of him who chose a life with ronan. it did kind of surprise me that he’d been feeling that way in the opal story, but then again that story was only told through opals eyes so we only really got bits and pieces of the full picture. we weren’t in adam or ronan’s heads. i think it’s kind of interesting that maggie went back to it from a sort of omniscient point of view in greywaren tho — she tends to do that a lot, like retrospectively add new context to previous scenes by changing perspectives. i guess a perk of writing multiple points of view is that you get a novel filled with unreliable narrators, which means you can withhold information from readers by having characters misread or ignore certain aspects of a situation.
going back to what you said tho i feel like some people would read that section you mentioned and take it to mean that he was going back on his conversation with gansey in trk or that he didn’t want to be with ronan. i don’t think that’s it at all - i think he saw that they were heading towards a future that couldn’t hold their relationship without either of them having to compromise some fundamental part of their lives. and these were compromises that neither of them could make or would let the other make. it was also a conversation they weren’t having; we know they weren’t properly communicating at that point, not in the way they perhaps should’ve been given their situation. but it’s also heavily implied that the reason they weren’t voicing their concerns was because they both knew they wouldn’t be able to fix these problems by just voicing them. they were going to go in circles: adam didn’t want to do long distance; ronan couldn’t move to boston; adam could go to a closer school but ronan would never let him do that.
i think it’s also important to note that they were both at a crossroads in their lives that summer. they’d survived past the point where they thought they would, and now the things they thought they wanted in life were starting to feel different to them. everything was going to shift when adam moved away. they both knew something about their situation had to change but neither of them were ready or able to make it happen. and so they spent a blissful summer trying to avoid confronting it, because it hurt too much to admit that it all felt impossible.
i think we should also remember that we didn’t have any povs from adam in dreamer trilogy OR the opal story. every time we saw the pair of them interacting in dreamer trilogy it was through ronan, who was absolutely in denial about how hard it was going to be for them (see: his theory of plausible deniability at the beginning of cdth). we have to base our understanding of adam’s behaviour on outside observations of him. ronan’s pov in cdth does mention how tumultuous adam’s mental state had been during that summer, especially when he found out he was accepted at harvard. he was anxious about starting something he’d been working towards for years, and he was anxious about leaving ronan and having to deal with the reality of their relationship outside of the barns. it makes sense that adam, who is generally less in denial about harsh realities than ronan, was probably having a silent dilemma over it. he’s an incredibly practical character, he over-analyses everything, there’s not a single outcome of a situation that he wouldn’t consider. there was no way that he hadn’t at least touched on the possibility of having to end things with ronan, however painful that outcome is. he was probably debating whether it was worth dragging themselves through something that was inevitably going to hurt them, or if it would just be easier to confront it head on. it’s one of those things that sometimes happens in relationships where, yes, the love between the two people is strong and present, but the love isn’t the problem. it’s their circumstances. sometimes you can’t see a way to fit your life and your relationship together, sometimes you can’t find a compromise that works, and i think that’s what adam was afraid of. he associated ronan with the magic part of his life. in his mind, magic and harvard couldn’t coexist.
the problem adam clearly had was that while this self-preserving and practical side of him was trying to reason it out (i.e. if you convince yourself you don’t love someone then you save yourself the pain of losing them), the more emotional side of him couldn’t fathom not loving ronan. as soon as he was with ronan again, the reality of loving him was too tangible. which also fits into why it feels slightly surprising to learn this information: we pretty much only saw adam when he was with ronan in trkopal, and (as we now know) every time he was with ronan he forgot everything he’d been telling himself when alone. it became impossible for him to imagine ever throwing their relationship away for anything. i also think that’s why that line is so sad. ronan meant so much to him that adam couldn’t convince himself to step away and save his heart from further pain.
and then we have ronan. he’d essentially been having the same dilemma over their situation as adam. distance from someone makes it easy to convince yourself that things won’t work out. isolation and distance makes it even easier. which is why (amongst other factors) it reached a point in book 2 where ronan, more isolated and distanced than ever, ended up being the one to call it. because ronan sees things in black and white and adam tends to focus on the grey areas. because ronan is driven by impulse and adam is driven by considered decisions. because at that time, ronan couldn’t exist in multiples; he was already being pulled in so many directions by his human side and his magic side. he didn’t know how to exist as both: as soon as one thread from his human life came loose, he was unable to contain the rest. adam, however, has always existed in multiples. student and logician, man and boy, etc. his life is a balancing act. he’d balanced friends and school and magic and work and an abusive home life; he could balance this too. he could hold on to this. to quote adam himself, he wanted it too much. even after ronan had essentially ended things between them, adam still found somewhere safe for ronan’s body, still came back to visit him, still risked his life scrying in order to find him. it’s like adam said in greywaren, ronan was where he stored all the reality. with the direction he was going in his life at that point, if he lost ronan, he was losing the one person who knew the truest version of him — he’d essentially end up losing himself fully.
so yes. i think considering everything, it does make sense to me that adam had that dilemma because it fits with the way he behaved in dreamer trilogy. it also feels very realistic. everyone has doubts, or considers cutting loose to avoid the risk of heartbreak. i think it’s quite an accurate depiction of how a lot of people behave and feel in relationships, especially when it’s your first long-term relationship, and especially when you were never taught how to properly and healthily communicate (which neither of them were). it’s hard to imagine a way out of the problems you’re facing, especially when those problems feel out of your control. but i think for me it only solidified how strongly adam felt for ronan, because even with those fears and those doubts he was never going to walk away. no matter how much easier it may have felt to do so, he always came back.
Declan is deadass going to die idk what to do hahaha
no you’re absolutely right 😭 im very slowly doing a cdth reread and the foreshadowing is sooooo much more heavy handed than i remember. if this guy makes it out of greywaren alive i’ll be really surprised + we used get out of death card for gansey already so that is also out. rip dermot, we had a good run✌️i will just have to make my peace with this
genuinely the Carmen/Declan’s dynamic is soooo good “the sibling who had to keep it together” the way she pitied him for “crushing any outward appearance of suffering”
I love what we’ve got of Farooq-Lane and Declan so far so much it’s insaneee. After what happened at the end of Mister Impossible, I was kind of expecting their next interaction to be laced with anger and/or distrust, but they are BOTH so guilt-ridden that they just end up being...more understanding of each other?? Farooq-Lane pitying him for “crushing any outward appearance of suffering” is a really neat note, especially because it calls back to how Locke wanted to give Farooq-Lane something to cover her unseemly grief at killing Nathan since she looked so dignified even in that moment. What a...way to cope with crushing grief, guys!
I wasn’t expecting their dynamic to go in this direction but I actually really prefer it. also I loooveee their “stable sibling” solidarity thing going on, 1) because they deserve to commiserate their lives suck so bad oh my god and 2) because now we know things will go south and they’ll be making horrific mistakes and falling out with siblings and not being so stable after all. They deserve to go a bit apeshit!!
sidenote. I also can’t wait for Hennessy and Farooq-Lane to interact onpage, I love that there’s some spicy conflict there. Carliana is sweet but too mellow atm for me Hennessy improves that dynamic so much!!
Jordeclan and Carmennessy are literally the same couple in different fonts
you know at first i was like hmm wait was it because they d feel like such fundamentally different characters despite all the obvious parallels (portrait making as a love language, blandness etc) but actually on second thought you're so correct. jordeclan is about sharing your real self with someone you love because for once you are not trying to protect them from secrets and carmenessy is allowing yourself to be the rawest version of yourself with someone because for once you do not think they've got their life together better than you. recognition through the other (appreciative) (sweet) (terrifying)
