"When I made her open her door, her whole world was overturned, and she had been buried under it." this didn't let out until the very end, my god. it hugs you and stabs you and caresses you and then stabs and stabs until the last second, but it never loses itself, never betrays itself for the sake of sentimentality. if i could give this 6 stars i would. it's such a simple story, but so gutting in its simplicity. the complicated, delicate ways in which we try to show our love, or fail to. how hard it is to reach out to someone, how hard it is to understand them when they live locked behind a closed door. how easy it is to fail them when they finally crack that door open and let you in, all in the name of helping them. such a good character study of both emerenc and the narrator, of two women of different ages, of different backgrounds, with different world views, who try and struggle to understand and love one another. sometimes it is a mercy to let someone slip away instead of forcing them to reveal their shame and misery to the world. this will stay with me for a long time, and it might be for personal reasons, but even so, objectively, few books have moved me like this; i cried every other chapter, either because it made me sad, or simply because i was moved by its love and compassion. it’s a very realistic story and it sticks its landing, never forgets to remind us that this is just life and this is how people are. it’s very easy for us, as the reader, to look at the character’s decisions and pass judgement and think we know better, but it ultimately is a realistic representation of people, and how somehow we make the wrong decisions for the right (or what we deem are the right) reasons. i will say, though, i think this translation could have benefitted from some footnotes. the author makes certain references to various hungarian cultural or historical details, that although can generally be researched online, the authorial intent and context is somewhat lost. it's not a huge issue, and most i think can be grasped, or if not, don't necessarily take from the text, but i think it would have elevated the reading experience even more. but regardless, this is simply such a good translation, it deserves its own separate praise.

made me reappraise my entire conception of love—platonic, maternal, or otherwise