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i have an extremely delicate ego. there is a little voice in the back of my head that is constantly comparing me to others, always studying and obsessing over my deficiencies. even when i read the synopsis of this book my heart was contorted with jealousy and shame. a story about a girl who makes it out of a difficult situation with no education and braves her way past the most prestigious ranks of academic achievement. i feel embarrassed even admitting it here..

from the onset i had already estranged the author as someone who i could never hope to understand.............................................................................(um.. i had a whirlwind of thoughts while i was spacing out in the shower, but now that im sitting here at the keyboard im at a loss for words. i dont know how to say it elegantly but ill try)

as i read on, and i learned about her traumas, i slowly let her in. i trusted her, i worried for her, i winced at the astronomical amount of pain she withstood. i kept reading because i wanted to see her happy, i wanted to see her make it through. it was never about harvard. it was never about being more successful, or having a published book. That wasn't the jealousy I had braced myself for when I started this book, and that's not the jealousy that threatens to break my heart whenever i have a conversation with anybody i judge to have had a normal upbringing. its not about scoring higher on an IQ test, or having read more books, or taking more classes. i think i realized finally, why i feel so alone.

"only then did i understand where the shame had come from: it wasn't that i hadn't studied in a marble conservatory, or that my father wasn't a diplomat. it wasn't that dad was half out of his mind, or that mother followed him. it had come from those moments on the floor, from knowing that mother was in the next room, closing her eyes and ears to me, and choosing, for that moment, not to be my mother at all.
...
the past was a ghost, insubstantial, unaffecting. only the future had weight."

that line filled me with hope.
- trading realities

since everyone survives, i hope it’s ok for me to say it…. this book is so funny. i love how despite their miserable situation they are still cracking jokes, writing disses about one another, dreaming of pudding and cream, cutting one another’s hair in an ice cave while their friends foot is getting amputated…. there are so many moments where i just burst out laughing. i think it’s because in the midst of all the tension and bad fortune, these small tender interactions are all the more precious. i haven’t read a book like this before, at least not in a long time. even when i put it down to do other stuff my mind was still on that ice floe, running around with everyone and smacking seals on the nose with an oar.

i love every character, and i love how the author always gets just the right excerpt of someone’s diary to pinpoint the mood. for example when their ship was first beset, and one wrote they were like an almond in the middle of a chocolate bar. oh man. i adore this book. i smiled so much, and i’m so glad that everyone’s ok and no one had to eat a human. i cannot believe this swashbuckling adventure is a true story and that i’m living in the same timeline.