failed relationships

"We're all performing our bruises"

It’s eighty-two degrees and I sit on sun drenched concrete, hot pink book in hand, pebble- small crimson strawberries staining my left hand and right knee. Suddenly, a fluttery brown butterfly wiggles between my thigh and the ground, crouching against my skin. I shriek- being the put together young woman i am- and then quiet, carefully shifting to stare at this beautiful thing that has chosen me to rest against. It flutters upwards too quickly, shooting straight into my neck where its wings rustle kisses much too softly against the most intimate sections of

I picked up this book because I had liked The Chocolate Money by the same author. Norton has a talent for brutal honesty, holding back nothing about her protagonists’ motives and thoughts. In The Chocolate Money we witness the fraught relationship a privileged young woman has with her eccentric heiress mother. An heiress herself, Norton writes what she knows, and in If You Left, she continues that trend by exploring a wealthy woman’s relationship with her family as she struggles with mental health issues, which Norton has opened up about in various interviews.

It is easy to sympathize with

Denver neurosurgeon Maggie Sullivan has reached a low point and needs a break. After being named in a wrongful death lawsuit, her medical partners being indited for fraud, and a miscarriage and break up with her boyfriend, Maggie is yearning for the peace of the mountains where her father's country store and campground on the Continental Divide Trail reminds her of less complicated times. Cal Jones is an early arrival to the campground and is there for a specific purpose; letting go and moving on after his wife's prolonged illness and passing. Of course, he doesn't share that right away and

Abba Kiarostami is a legendary Iranian director , and Certified Copy is his first movie shot outside Iran and produced in the English language. The plot is simple:   A French émigré (Juliette Binoche), who manages an antique store in Italy, meets an English cultural historian, James Miller (William Shimell), who is visiting her town.  They start a conversation.

Certified Copy is done in Kiarostami’s old tradition of narrative filmmaking where two people casually discuss their lives. The movie has an easy conversational rhythm. However, Kiarostami is playing with us again, both by utilizing