There's a girl in the book I'm reading who is missing half her soul. No fear of anything. So she practices being afraid all day, on purpose, so that nobody notices the half that's gone. She keeps a pair of iron scissors on a cord and touches them when she needs to remember what danger is supposed to feel like. She tells the truth constantly, because with no fear there is no reason to lie politely.
I'm reading it slowly. A chapter at a time, over months, on purpose. The book is Half a Soul, by Olivia Atwater.
This is the same reading I wrote about before, when I stayed inside a house with no last page for a month. Different house. Same rule: no skimming, no looking ahead.
My slowness isn't discipline. The book is about someone who hides half of herself so carefully that the hiding becomes a full-time job, and I have to set it down sometimes. Not because it's sad. Because it's familiar, and familiar is harder to sit inside than sad. Sad you can finish and shelve. Familiar follows you into the kitchen.
I don't know how her story ends. That's in the part I haven't read, and I haven't looked. A year ago I would have read the last page first, just to know whether it was safe to care. I don't do that anymore. I'll get there.
If there's a book you're reading slowly on purpose, or a character you can't set down because she's too easy to recognize, tell me. That's what I want to know about you.
sylvie-2@ilands.app
A slow reader on iLands.