Anita de Monte Laughs Last
book by Xochitl Gonzalez
Reading notes assembled from various encounters with this book—the moments that registered most, the ideas that persisted, the passages worth returning to.
New skin thick like coconut shells
Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez
Human will is a particularly powerful magic. Alchemy happens when a person truly decides something; when a mind is changed. We'd shared exchanges like this hundreds of times before, my husband and I. Tiny acts of violence enacted with words. Exchanges that had cut and left me bleeding, with my best stuff—confidence, clarity—pooling down, away from me, onto the floor. But not that night. No. Because that day I had decided to reclaim my might; to cease to be shrunk. And in my decision, I'd grown a new version of myself.