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TheHighlyTheatrical

28 | busy haunting the narrative 🦇 Fable: TheHighlyTheatrical

301 points

0% overlap
Russian Lit 101
My Taste
The Master and Margarita
Sin Eater
Crime and Punishment
The Book of Disquiet
The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories
Reading...
The Idiot
0%
The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles, #2)
0%

TheHighlyTheatrical wrote a review...

1w
  • Cold Crematorium
    May 14, 2026
    5.0
    Enjoyment: 3.5Quality: 5.0Characters: 5.0Plot: 5.0
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    Like any Holocaust literature, this is notably difficult to read and yet, I have been unable to put this book down the past five days. This novel is what happens when an artist lives. When a journalist's luck smiles at him and he survives a journey through hell to tell a story from the land where horror dictates the law and monsters are gods. The writer pays a great price for survival and so do we, being beside him at every moment of torture thanks to the cinematic clarity of his storytelling.

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  • TheHighlyTheatrical finished a book

    1w
    Cold Crematorium

    Cold Crematorium

    József Debreczeni

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    TheHighlyTheatrical made progress on...

    2w
    Cold Crematorium

    Cold Crematorium

    József Debreczeni

    100%
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    TheHighlyTheatrical made progress on...

    2w
    Cold Crematorium

    Cold Crematorium

    József Debreczeni

    56%
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    TheHighlyTheatrical made progress on...

    2w
    Brave New World

    Brave New World

    Aldous Huxley

    14%
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    TheHighlyTheatrical made progress on...

    2w
    Cold Crematorium

    Cold Crematorium

    József Debreczeni

    44%
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    TheHighlyTheatrical started reading...

    2w
    Cold Crematorium

    Cold Crematorium

    József Debreczeni

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    TheHighlyTheatrical wrote a review...

    4w
  • There is Violence and There is Righteous Violence and There is Death or, The Born-Again Crow
    Apr 24, 2026
    4.0
    Enjoyment: 5.0Quality: 5.0Characters: 4.0Plot: 4.0
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    A relatively short and very fast-paced theatre play that’s written in a simple, conversational tone surely isn’t supposed to make this big of an impact on a reader. But it does, perhaps, if you are the target audience — a woman, whether young or older, who somehow has lived a version of every interaction that takes place in the 15 scenes of the play. We have all surely felt what deep-seated female rage feels, and the powerlessness in the face of bigotry and injustice that births it. We have surely felt alienated in our wishes of basic decency and respect, both for humans and animals, in a world that bows to the tenet of “divide and conquer”. We had tried to fight, and we had failed, and we had made mistakes along the way, but we have come out the other side having met our stronger and much wiser, braver self. Sometimes that “self” comes in a shape of a “special” crow. And it brings us gifts worthy of the warrior woman, who, even in her most terrified and lonely moments, refused to betray herself.

    There is whimsy in this tragedy, and there is magic where there’s no hope, and there is justice and becoming for one weird girl in the centre of this story as well as the weird girl reading it.

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  • There is Violence and There is Righteous Violence and There is Death or, The Born-Again Crow
    Thoughts from 67% (page 51) — a gift for Joan of Arc

    CROW: There is violence and there is righteous violence and there is death and for you there is nothing similar between them. You don't have to be afraid, Beth! The bird is dead. The bird died. You prefer buttons and beads? What feeling is there in a gift like that? What I brought you is a gift for a strong girl. For a warrior girl. This is a gift for Joan of Arc.

    BETH: I'm not Joan of Arc.

    CROW: You could be, Beth. You just need a cause. And you could bear a shield. Armour with dead baby birds all over the chest plate, and you could burn on the pyre for your baby bird! Or maybe I didn't bring you a victim—maybe I brought you a villain and you could seek out the rest. You're capable, Beth. You have the spirit for it—that's why you can talk to me and that's why we're friends.

    "...and that's why we are friends."

    Beth's journey to processing what happened at the Superstore as well as coming to terms with her current environment is so Jungian. Couldn't have been a better suited metaphor than a crow.

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  • TheHighlyTheatrical earned a badge

    5w
    Level 3

    Level 3

    250 points

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  • The Vampire Lestat (The Vampire Chronicles, #2)
    Thoughts from 35% (page 173) How dare you phrase things this way, Lestat, how dare you 💔

    When he asks "what's wrong" , but Lestat said:

    "But I wondered if there had been moments tonight when she had wept inwardly and I had not known."

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  • TheHighlyTheatrical made progress on...

    5w
    There is Violence and There is Righteous Violence and There is Death or, The Born-Again Crow

    There is Violence and There is Righteous Violence and There is Death or, The Born-Again Crow

    Caleigh Crow

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    Post from the Brave New World forum

    5w
  • Brave New World
    Thoughts from 1% (page 1) — The quote that made me start immediately

    Somehow, it was as though he had never really hated him before; never really hated him because he had never been able to say how much he hated him. But now he had these words, these worlds like drums and singing and magic.

    I knew about Brave New World of course but I have never read it, and neither have I known about the exact plot. I immediately got the book after having come across this quote. The ability to verbally express oneself has such tremendous power… How suffocating must it be to not have the words to express what you feel so strongly. How can you truly experience it? How can you feel it? How can you make sense of it or connect with another over it? The limitation of language, self-imposed or circumstantial is a torture I would not want to experience.

    So excited to begin reading.

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