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#and that he does NOT need to meet the expectations of (1) ableist society in general
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sometimes i think about Demoman’s low self-esteem in the context of his family traditions and i’m like:
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It’s Shark Week 2020
And I’ve got a ranty review for you about a romance novel featuring sharks.
If you missed the previous part, you can find it here:  Part One.
Part 2
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So I’ve ranted about Grace, our heroine, which means that it’s time to tackle the really, really shitty hero. If you thought Grace was bad, wait until you meet our “hero” Alec Galloway.
I hate him. 
I hate him so much that I was not rooting for him at all during the book. He’s the kind of asshole who claims to be feminist but actually is a raging misogynist with a full-blown case of toxic masculinity. (I’m looking at you Joss Whedon.)
Alec is possessive. Mansplainy. And stalkery. I mean, when we first meet him he’s staking out Grace at a conference to talk her into letting him be her filmmaker after she’s already rejected him. He doesn’t take no for an answer and weasels and wheedles his way onto her crew.
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Pro-tip: If someone doesn’t respect your “no” for something non-sexual, they likely will not respect your “no” for something sexual. If you want to see how someone will behave when put on the spot, say no to them on something that doesn’t matter and see what happens. A good trick for dating is saying that a date/time/location doesn’t work and suggesting an alternative. It lets you know what to expect.
He’s also clearly an Expy of Andy Casagrande who is one of Discovery and Shark Week’s resident cameramen, bros, and person who will do unsafe crap because it makes good television. Like Ocean Ramsay many shark scientists are iffy about Andy Casagrande. He’s a great cameraman. He shouldn’t be the expert and he often is. It’s a problem because he’s about making good television not promoting actual research... but I’m ranting.
Here, let me give you a taste of our hero...
He feels like he needs to save the day even when help isn’t needed or, more importantly, asked for.
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Seriously. Don’t touch people without their permission. And definitely don’t pick them up. Like Oh my gods.
He’s sexist.
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Dude, maybe she didn’t feel like joking. She doesn’t owe you anything. For all you know, she jokes all the time with her friends (in fact, she does). Maybe you’re the problem!
Alec is ableist.
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 As a note, Felix is a shark. Yep... it’s one of the famous shark attacks that happen in this book.
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Anyway... look at the ableism! Implying that someone is crazy, insane, having a marble knocked loose, etc. is ableist. There’s a lot of ableist language in our society and we often refer to things that are out of control, unpredictable, or unusual with terms that imply that mental illness is bad. This is why the stigma of having a mental illness is so high. Why people would rather die than get treatment. Why people view getting tested and diagnosed as problem.
It’s not.
Getting a diagnosis of a mental illness, if you have one, is the first step in recovery and management. People with mental illnesses are awesome. And I can guarantee you know someone with a mental illness... 1-4 Americans has a diagnosed mental illness... and that’s just diagnosed... there’s a high probability that the number is higher.
Gets off the soapbox... have a shark.
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Back to Asshole Alec.
He’s a misogynist.
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This kind of commentary is way too common in the book. It’s a fucking mess.
Worse (yes he gets worse) Alec’s also a coercive bastard on top of being sexist, ableist, and a misogynist...
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Spoiler Alert... this is a one star book...
Like it could be anything else.
The problem with this is that it is something that date rapists and abusers do. It’s a guilt trip. It’s coercion. And it immediately makes the sex dubious consent at best. There are so many examples of men doing this to women who say no... which the “We can’t.” is her saying no.
A good rule of consent is to assume that anything other than an enthusiastic “Yes” is a “No.” In our society women are conditioned not to tell a man no, it’s dangerous for us. So we’ll deflect, distract, and make excuses. That is why anything other than a verbal “yes” and its variants has to be a “no.”
Yes, I am going to harp on consent here. It’s important.
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The author also conflates Jealousy and possessiveness as “GOOD” emotions to have in a relationship. It isn’t and they aren’t. Jealousy and Possessiveness are signs of a lack of trust. They’re signs of objectification. They’re warning signs.
Taken to an extreme... jealousy and possessiveness are both hallmarks of domestic abuse. They’re hallmarks of stalkers. They’re hallmarks of a bad relationship. There’s a difference between wanting to be with someone and wanting to own them, mark them, brand them.
Here’s some examples from the book.
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Grace is jealous. And Alec is being a dick.
Don’t worry... Alec is also a possessive ass.
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Both leads constantly become jealous when a member of the opposite sex approaches them... or they think about their love interests prior relationships. Jealousy is not an attractive trait. It is possession it is possessiveness. It’s not romantic and jealousy is something that leads to many women being killed on a regular basis.
The thing is... the author listed a whole slew of editors that she used (which note I’m not going after this book for technical errors -- factual, sure -- and I’m definitely hitting the book on storytelling choices but from a technical and line editing standpoint the story was solid). However, this book desperately needed a good sensitivity editor or six. Like I’ve already hit some racism, ableism, and consent issues and there’s more to come.  But I think this post has gotten long enough.
Until Next time! Go here for Part Three!
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If you like these kind of ranty (and honest) reviews, please consider supporting us here! These do take a long time to write.
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iamsashagay · 5 years
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RP Month 2019!
         Those of you who have had the (mis)fortune of following me on social media for a while, you know February is Retinitis Pigmentosa Awareness Month. Which means I get to write a bunch about myself and my life and nobody can judge me too hard about it! Yay! I thought this year I’d try to be a bit more #enlightened and talk about language surrounding visual impairment and the ableism that is so persistent in our lives. (For reference, I’ve already written a bunch about my diagnosis and what dealing with it has been like). If you don’t want to read a whole lot of words, here’s a brief summary and some updates.
-    I was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa in the fall of 2015 with an approximately 60 degree field of vision (180 degrees is ‘normal’
-     I was told I would likely be legally blind by 40, if not by 35
-     I was referred to the CNIB and started accessing their services (such as orientation and mobility training, getting a CNIB bus pass) in the spring/summer of 2016
-     In 2017, my peripheral vision continued to erode and I lost roughly 1/3rd of my visual acuity in my right eye
-    As of my most recent eye appointment, my field of vision has degraded to about 25-30 degrees (combined). I have no peripheral vision at all at this point. -    Based on the rate of my vision loss since my diagnosis, I’ll probably be legally blind far before my doctors’ initial estimation (legally blind is defined as an individual having a 20 degree or less field of vision)
-       I went back to school (yay me!) last month and I’ve been *pretty* good about using my white cane to get around and forcing myself to get more comfortable with my reality as a ~blind~ person
And that’s what you missed! I’m also gonna sprinkle in some of my favorite RP Truth memes because they’re wonderful and make me feel seen (no pun intended). So having lived in this shit for the past few years and having to…let people know what’s going on, I’ve heard a lot said about my vision loss from (often) well-meaning people. Probably my biggest pet peeve re: vision loss talk is the initial conversation I have with people when they either find out about my condition or when they feel comfortable asking me about my blindness. Inevitably, the first question people leap to is “is there a treatment? Is there a cure?!”It’s an innocent enough set of questions, and I truly believe there’s good intent behind asking them.
The issue I have is that, with my condition, there…isn’t. There is no viable course of treatment, nor is there anything resembling a real-world cure. Which inevitably leads to “well they’re doing great things with rats and genetics and science is wonderful I know they’ll have a cure for you soon!” Which, again, is meant to sound supportive, encouraging, and positive. It’s what people have trained themselves to say when they’re confronted with something like blindness.
Think about this conversation for a moment. It is inherently ableist. The entire sequence (and it’s a very predictable one once you’ve sat through it a few dozen times at minimum) suggests that the only response to losing one’s vision is to immediately *fix* the problem. It tells people like me that we’re broken. That we need to be solved. It tells me that a reality where I just *accept* my genetic coding isn’t a viable one. That the thought of existing while blind is so disturbing that it should be completely leapt over to fixing the problem so that scenario never happens. Sure, it’s not intentional. That doesn’t change the meaning behind those words, well-intentioned as they tend to be. The words are ableist because they imply that I could not be productive, or valuable, or happy the way I am. They say that I must want to change a fundamental part of my existence. Why? Why is the default not to ask
-       How are you handling this?
-       How can I make this easier?
-       What are your plans for the future?
-       Do you have the support you need?
-       Can I make this space more accessible for you?
Those questions don’t spring into people’s minds because our society has so deeply ingrained ableism into our vocabulary that we act on the presumption that it is the disabled individual’s existence that needs to be altered, and not the environment that sets them up on an unequal playing field.
Telling me that I should hold out hope for a cure that may never come, or may never be accessible to me, is akin to telling me that I should just lay down and let the world do her thing and passively accept whatever comes. I understand fully that when people have this conversation with me they aren’t *actually* trying to make that statement. Five years ago, those are the questions I would ask. I struggled for a really long time (fuck, I still struggle) to just accept my reality-  to accept that this was simply something I was going to live with and that I needed to work within the circumstances I had been given. That, however, does not absolve people from the responsibility to look at why they are so uncomfortable with the thought of someone not being wholly invested in being “cured” or why I might not be interested in investing my energy into hoping and dreaming for science to bring back my vision.
Why do we think a life with vision loss is such a devastating notion? Why is my lack of peripheral vision such a scary thing people to think about? When we skip over these questions, we skip over what really matters: that the society we inhabit is not designed for people with disabilities. We focus all our energy into fixing disabilities because we’d rather ignore how poorly individuals with disabilities are treated and how inaccessible we have made the world for them.
I’m not able to speak for people who have other disabilities than mine, or even those who have different forms of vision loss than me, but I encourage you to seek out their work if you’re so inclined. We all experience our environments differently, but I think it’s safe to say the consensus is that living with a disability isn’t necessarily the problem – the problem is how we are expected to behave with our disabilities. We are expected to return to an “able” state as quickly and inspirationally as possible, or to step back and become passive members of society so as to not trouble the abled people around us.
Existing as someone who is blind is not revolutionary. I am not revolutionary for returning to school for a career that is more in line with the abilities I have now and will have in the future. I am not revolutionary for navigating downtown streets with a white cane. I am not revolutionary for holding down a job – and being *good* at that job (although given 80% of people who are legally blind are unemployed…it’s easy to see why that’s an assumption). I am not revolutionary for getting coffee from Tim Horton’s in the morning. I am not a token for you to look at and say “and we think we have problems” while gesturing to your coworkers. That’s some next-level ableist bullshit. All I wanted was a double double that morning, and that lady at the counter thought it was acceptable for her to treat me as an example of how cruel life could be. She dehumanized me. Fuck that shit.
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I’m going to go a little bit off on a side tangent here; feel free to skip down a lil’ if you’d rather not read this rant. In addition to the above, you know what else is not revolutionary? My love life. It is not revolutionary that I have a partner who loves me. It is not revolutionary that Joey deems me worthy of his time, or his respect, or his love. He does not get an award for being audacious enough to be in a relationship with someone who is disabled. He does not get to be the ‘better’ partner in our relationship because he is willing to somehow be chained to my crippled existence. We joke about it, because humor is how I cope with a lot of things, but at the end of the day, he is not *brave* for “seeing past” my blindness. So when you see us looking cute on the gram or him by my side at the mall when I’ve got my cane out – don’t chalk him up to being a wonderful supportive partner because he is willing to accept my disability.  Joey is a wonderful and supportive partner because he gives me space to explore who I want to be. He is a wonderful and supportive partner because he is without fail by my side even when I do a shitty job of prioritizing him. Joey is a wonderful and supportive person because he wants me to be independent. His love has been unconditional for over seven and a half years, and my diagnosis did not change his love for me. Do not disrespect his loyalty and love for me by suggesting he is the best example of what a man can be because he doesn’t treat me differently for my blindness. That’s the goddamn minimum. That is the lowest bar to meet. I am fucking worthy of love with or without my vision, with or without my hearing. My value is not tied to how able-bodied I may or may not be.
My abiity to pretend to be able bodied is not something to applaud me for. I am very good at pretending to see more than I often can – to the point where I’ve had people who’ve never seen me use my cane be shocked when they find out how little vision I have left. 
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I am not revolutionary for giving back to my community through my volunteer work. Blind people are not heroes for doing the same things you and the able-bodied people around you do.
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Do you know why inspiration porn exists? It’s because our world expects disabled people to fail. It’s because deep down, you know how little thought is given to making accessibility the default. You know that disabled people have to work harder and do more to be “normal” just because of the way things are. That’s why you ask me when I’ll be cured.
The idea of someone being visually impaired and not having an escape plan from that reality is deeply uncomfortable, because it means confronting how basic things are designed to be exclusionary.
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 It means realizing how shitty this city is to navigate as a pedestrian. It means noticing that we’re okay with people placing any and all manner of obstacles in the middle of sidewalks, from signs, to bowls of water, to clothing racks. It means recognizing how little people give a fuck about others. Just today as I was making my way downtown (walking fast, faces past) on the subway, a man with a seeing eye dog got on the train. Who do you think was the only person on the entire train who thought to give him their seat? It was me and my white cane who gave up their seat – while the lady next to me bent over in her fucking seat to pet the man’s SERVICE DOG. I was livid.
We pretend to be doing our part to be ‘inclusive’ and ‘improving accessibility’ while avoiding doing the actual work. The TTC for example, gives the CNIB transit passes to distribute to their clients so they can access public transit for free. I’d love to applaud them for that. I cannot, however, because they apparently forgot to train their employees on how to deal with visually impaired people who use the cards. It is *not*, as occurred the other week, to berate riders about not “showing the card properly” or “not waiting for an empty bus” and then getting on the intercom to lecture said rider about how “if they were smart enough to be going to school they should be smart enough to ride the bus” in front of sixty people. That is no accessible. It is not accessible when I complain both publicly and privately to the TTC about said incident and their initial response is not to be outraged that the incident took place, but rather to let me know their vehicle operators are “trained in how to accept fares”. (It’s been over two weeks since I submitted an official complaint. I’ll let you guess if I was graced with any formof a response other than a “we received your complaint” form email). The TTC is ableist. The TTC is a problem.
The problem is not my vision. The system is designed to burn us out so we don’t scream about the injustice of how we treat people whose DNA skipped a few lines. It’s exhausting trying to keep up with people who don’t have to give a second thought to where curbs are, or which seat on the subway is the easiest to get off from, or remember which set of stairs has the awkward landing on it, or how to hold a cane and a backpack and a phone at the same time. I’m okay with that though, because I’m learning to adapt. I’m unlearning a lifetime of ableist thinking. I’m proving my worth to myself. I’m doing good. 
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Just please stop asking me about a cure. I don’t have the time, because I’m busy trying to get my coffee (probably).
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tiredandwily · 7 years
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Book review: Carry the Ocean by Heidi Cullinan 
Contemporary Fiction, LGBT Fiction, Young Adult Fiction, New Adult Fiction
https://www.amazon.com/Carry-Ocean-Roosevelt-Heidi-Cullinan/dp/1945116986/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496721454&sr=8-1&keywords=carry+the+ocean
--- My rating --- 
4 / 5 stars
--- Synopsis --- 
“High school graduate Jeremey Samson is looking forward to burying his head under the covers and sleeping until it's time to leave for college. Then a tornado named Emmet Washington enters his life. The young man with a double major in math and computer science is handsome, forward, wicked smart, interested in dating Jeremey--and he has autism.But Jeremey doesn't judge him for that. He's too busy judging himself, as are his parents, who don't believe in things like clinical depression. When Jeremey's untreated illness reaches a critical breaking point, Emmet is the white knight who rescues him and brings him along as a roommate to The Roosevelt, a quirky new assisted living facility.As Jeremey and Emmet find their feet at The Roosevelt, they begin to believe they can be loved for the men they are beyond their disabilities. But before they can trust enough to fall head over heels, they must trust their own convictions that friendship is a healing force and love can overcome any obstacle.”
Book one of the Roosevelt series
--- Review --- 
I gave Carry the Ocean 4 stars because I really enjoyed it (I debated maybe 4.5 stars). I would recommend it to anyone interested in a character-driven, contemporary, and emotional narrative. I would also recommend it to anyone interested in LGBT fiction or slash fiction. It’s suited for age 17+.
Carry the Ocean is told in first person from two viewpoints, Jeremey and Emmet, in alternating chapters. Both protagonists are teenage boys, and each voice is beautiful with so much depth. Emmet has Autism Spectrum Disorder, and his chapters were my favorite, I loved to read about what life is like with ASD. The character has such a unique and fascinating perspective of life and of himself. His mechanisms for coping with ASD seemed to be described well. His chapters were uplifting and beautifully honest, and his relationship with his parents was lovely to read.
Jeremey has Major Depressive Disorder and Clinical Anxiety. His chapters were darker but equally honest and fascinating. It was sometimes difficult to read about such crippling anxiety, but the interaction between him and Emmet always saved the day. They meet within the first few pages, and the relationship they develop is very real, and based on respect and honesty. The two characters understand one another, work together, never judge each other, and lift each other up. Throughout the book, the boys learn about each other and what the other needs.
The insightful inner voice of the boys was the best part of the book. Each is different in tone, but both are very honest without being over-dramatic. The book is easy to read, and the major themes are presented well, themes of friendship, love, and acceptance. This book is for anyone who has ever felt like an outcast, or anyone struggling with mental illness. The major message, that there is no normal, that normal is an illusion, is presented very well. Simply, this book is about two boys trying to deal with society’s expectations and parental expectations, and learning that it’s okay to be different. It’s also refreshing to read a novel with an LGBT relationship where the relationship is not the conflict.
I hesitate to call the book Young Adult because of the graphic sex, but of course sex is part of teenage life, and it’s presented very maturely. Perhaps New Adult is a better genre to place this book in. The sex scenes are told during Emmet chapters, which is a unique perspective and made the scenes intriguing and quite original. I love how the boys talk about sex as well, very frank, and always open with their needs.
My minor complaints are that the alternating perspective can be hard to keep track of. I tended to begin a chapter without remembering the perspective had shifted (even though each chapter is labeled). Also, the character of Jeremey’s mother is very overdone. She’s incredibly ableist, and seems to have very little compassion for her own son. Another minor complaint I had is I tend to enjoy somewhat poetic prose, a little more flowery, but the writing was very matter-of-fact. [cont’d]
---- Plot-review ---- [SPOILERS]
The book begins with Emmet describing what it’s like to be Emmet, what it’s like to have Autism Spectrum Disorder. Emmet is high-functioning and whip-smart, and the first chapter of the book is a bit of an info-dump about the ways he is “normal” and the ways he is special. He decides he wants to ask out his neighbor, Jeremey, but he has to to research first about how to ask someone out and how to behave so Jeremey won’t be confused or turned off by Emmet’s lack of standard social decorum.  
“... to learn and memorize the etiquette, to find the right words that would show me to Jeremey, not my autism. It took a long time and a lot of work, but I did it.”
As a reader I connected immediately with Emmet’s voice. I’d say it’s one of the most well developed perspectives/voices I’ve read in fiction in years. It’s an amazing insight into life with ASD.
Chapter two is from Jeremy’s perspective, it picks up where chapter one leaves off. The reader learns about Jeremey’s anxiety and depression. At first, he is confused by Emmet and has a panic attack, but Emmet is exactly what Jeremy needs in the moment and he helps calm Jeremey’s nerves. 
“For the first time since my meltdown, I wasn’t thinking about how to make the world stop, how to escape the failure that was my life. I thought about Emmet Washington...”
Throughout the next few chapters, Emmet and Jeremey get to know one another. They hit it off immediately. There’s no drama with how they feel about one another, which is frankly refreshing. Jeremey learns about Emmet’s ASD, and Emmet is happy to learn about what its like to live with Major Depressive Disorder and Clinical Anxiety. Their first kiss comes soon after, but Jeremey’s mother walks in on them and is not happy with what she sees.
This is where the conflict is introduced. Jeremey’s mother is, well, a bitch. She’s homophobic and ableist, and neither does she understand or seem to care about her son’s panic attacks and depression. In my humble opinion, this character is way overdone. She yells at her son in Target for having a panic attack, calls Emmet the R-word, and cares only about her son being “normal”.
After this, Jeremey and Emmet are not allowed to see one another, though they communicate through text message. With the oppression of his mother and without Emmet to comfort him, Jeremey attempts suicide. 
Emmet and his mother, a doctor, call 911 and Jeremey’s life is saved. He has to spend a few weeks on the psychiatric floor of a hospital, and he sees a therapist, Dr. North, a therapist who has been also seeing Emmet. 
“I visited him on the third day, when Dr. North said Jeremey could have visitors again. He said Jeremey had been good and worked hard on his therapy and deserved a reward, and I was the reward he wanted. That made me happy. I’ve never been a reward before.”
Through therapy sessions, Jeremey’s character is really fleshed out and the reader learns about his relationship with his parents. At this point as a reader I felt very invested in Jeremey’s wellbeing, and Dr. North was a godsend and a breath of fresh air for both Jeremey and Emmet. 
“The most difficult part about being in the hospital wasn’t the meds, or the loss of freedom, or the scariness of what would happen when I got out. It was my mom.”
The boys decide to live in an assisted living facility together when Jeremey leaves the hospital, and after convincing their parents they can care for themselves, Dr. North tells them he thinks it could be a great idea, that it would be best for Jeremey not to go back home with his parents.
“Also, if we lived in the same apartment, we could have sex. The drugs dulled the yearning a little bit, but only when Emmet wasn’t in the room. When he was with me, like right now, talking and planning and being so bright, all I wanted to do was kiss him and touch him.”
Jeremey is first moved to a group home. These chapters give another great dose of insight about how mentally ill people are treated in society and what group homes can be like and why.
Finally, the boys move into the assisted living facility, The Roosevelt. It takes time for them to adjust to living together and for Jeremey to get used to Emmet’s rules. Meanwhile, Jeremey’s social anxiety means he cannot go shopping or be in loud, unpredictable environments. The social workers who live at The Roosevelt help them with the adjustment. 
“In our apartment, Jeremey and I had a good pattern. The notes helped us with organization, and our Saturday morning meetings with Sally and Tammy helped us learn how to make sure we didn’t have any problems we needed to work out.”
Jeremey struggles to find a job. He decides he’d like to work for one of the residents at The Roosevelt, one who Emmet hates, and this causes a temporary rift. Emmet learns to better communicate with Jeremey about what is bothering him and why, and Jeremey slowly learns to overcome his anxiety and how to get out from under the shadow of his parents. 
Without giving away the ending, the book has a quiet ending, but the story is wrapped up beautifully, and though it gets heavy at times, the book is overall uplifting, well-written, eye-opening, and reminds the reader that the differences between us are not really so big after all.
My favorite part of Carry the Ocean is the voice. The Emmet chapters are quite different from the Jeremey chapters in voice and tone. Emmet is matter-of-fact, honest, and has trouble reading emotions. Jeremey is quiet, anxious, and he is very easily bothered by the emotions of everyone around, which is why he has trouble in public places. It’s alluded to, and once stated outright, that Jeremey is the less “together” one, while Emmet is his white-knight who does not judge him and is able to be exactly what Jeremey needs. They’re a great pairing, I love a book where the relationship starts early on, and individually they’re amazing characters that I will remember for years. 
---- Warnings---- [SPOILERS]
Graphic sex
Non-graphic suicide attempt
(feel free to message me if you’d like to know more detail about the warnings before reading the book)
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