rip lux lisbon you would’ve loved tumblr

this book is like a boyfriend. he’s quirky, he’s talented, he says the right things that keep replaying in your head. but he has huge red flags that you keep ruining your dates, maybe he’s mean to the waitress or he’s obtusely out of touch. in the books case, its the male gaze (which somehow works but is also distracting), as well as the random, unnecessary racism. a paragraph will be winding and illustrating the echoing high school hallway, and then all of a sudden n word drop. like what?????

the prose was BRILLIANT. the gothic suburbia painting is beautiful. and parsing through the male gaze, we can see the lisbon girls as flushed out, real teenagers, not some barbie that the men are projecting on. speaking of the men, the ‘we’ narration blew me away. i’ve never read a piece that uses a we point of view, and i loved how it brought the reader in with the men, investigating and questioning and obsessing along with them. 

the ending is frustrating. i hate when ppl call suicide victims selfish. and i hate “but only that we had loved them, and that they hadn’t heard us calling.” in my interpretation, the lisbons girls dont give a FUCK about these boys. the 1 thing that DOESNT matter is that they “loved” them. they didn’t love them, they loved the mysterious, melancholy air of their perfume. and they DIDNT CALL. they DIDNT ask them how they were coping after cecelia, they DIDNT ask if they needed help, and they DIDNT try to rescue the girls from their parents and that house. and i dont think they have to have done that for the story, its a book and they r teen boys and its the 60s/70s, like how would they have. but DONTTTT say “they hadn’t heard us calling.” u didnt try!!!!!! just cut that whole last monologue.

i also wish they investigated/discussed the girls killing themselves all on the same day more, and dragging the boys into it. like thats fucking crazy.

also the title upsets me. it centers their sexuality the whole story which is NOT at all the point.

also the narration goes into great detail about how lux ISNT a virgin! so if its not even accurate then wtf!!!

i guess “the sister suicides” wouldnt sell as well. needed to be double taboo. i wish it had a more thoughtful title

i will be reading academia on this, and viewing some youtube essays perhaps. excited to watch the movie.

im glad i didnt read this book when i was 15, i think it wouldve made me kms. keep this book away from high schoolers.