What do you think?
Rate this book
305 pages, Hardcover
First published October 31, 2017
“If you drop the weight you are carrying, it is okay. You can build yourself back up out of the pieces.”
The Wicker King was beautiful -- brilliant, mad, sick, free. He kissed the blisters on the palms of August's hands. "Thank you. Thank you..."
August put the gasoline can down and waited. Jack lit his cigarette, holding it between strong white teeth before passing it over. Like a secondhand kiss on a breath of ash.
Then, with a resolute and terrible sorrow, Jack cradled August's cheek in his nervously shaking hands and kissed him.
"It's not weak. My mom once told me that being alone makes you feel weaker every day, even if you're not," he said quietly. "But it's not as bad if you're with other people who are alone, too. We can hold each other up like a card tower."
#1 The Wicker King ★★★★★
#1.5 The Legend of the Golden Raven ★★★★☆
“They have stories about you, songs. They call you the Raven, the Golden Bird, the King’s Lionheart. Women smile at you as we walk in the streets; men talk about you over their fires. It’s written all over the walls. They love you and you can’t even see them… my Lionheart. Can you imagine?”
Jack owned him. In a way. It was difficult to explain, but the feeling was as familiar to him as his own name.
He fell. Groaning. Thinking of chapped lips, strong arms, and freckles.
“I see you the same. I don’t think it will ever change… It doesn’t matter if you’re wearing my colors or dressed like this. You’re always just you.”
Jack laughed. “How romantic. My knight in shining fucking armor.”
“Would you do something bad if you knew it would have more good in it, in the end, than bad?”
“The world was so big and they were very small and there was no one around to stop terrible things from happening.”
“It was the debt. The river. It was his religion now.”
“If you drop the weight you are carrying, it is okay. You can build yourself back up out of the pieces.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
"They were breathing in tandem now."
"It started small, but it bubbled bigger every minute. Rising black and ugly through the veins in his feet, up and up, bursting through his cells and filling his lungs, encasing itself around his bones and finally spilling from his eyes, tacky like tar. It tumbled from his mouth in a howl of rage so deep it shook his teeth. The hairs rose on the back of his neck.
It was a shout of pain so pure and hot, he could have sworn it was burning out his eyes."
"Even as the sky falls and the only thing I can hear besides your voice is the screams of the dying and the thundering of horses?"
"August didn't realize he was crying until his sobs began to choke him. "Is it over? Is it over? Is it over?"
// buddy read with a sweetoe rat
➽ buddy read with the queen of badassery
"How long have you been waiting for me?"
Dragons & Tea Book Club book of the month
August had wanted to roll over for him. Wanted to bare his neck. Wanted to give himself up, so ferocious was his gratitude. As Jack’s fingers trailed through his hair and as he wrapped his Pokémon sweatshirt around August’s shoulders, something in August broke. Or changed. He wasn’t sure. But he’d known then that he was important. He was valuable. He was Jack’s.