Real Talk
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A reflection on Small Things Like These and the violence of looking away Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These is a quiet book. Short, restrained, almost deliberately modest. A man going about his work. A town moving through winter. A truth that has existed in plain sight for years. There are no speeches, no dramatic…
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Girlhood, intimacy, and the discipline of desire There is a particular kind of story that repeats itself across women’s writing — not because it is copied, but because it is lived. Mona Awad’s Bunny, Emma Cline’s The Girls, Melissa Febos’s Girlhood, and Esperanza Hope Snyder’s Orange Wine are not in conversation by design, but by…
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Why Looking for Alaska was banned, what it taught me, and what’s next in the Banned Book Challenge: The Bluest Eye. Free tracker included.
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Join my 6-month banned books challenge as we read the stories they don’t want moms talking about. Starting July 2025 with Looking for Alaska by John Green.
daniella does it all 