Lispector reinvigorated my hunger for words. I usually tell people this is my favorite book. It's deeply devastating, yet hopeful...even if that hope springs from denial. Gets closer to capturing what it is to be human than anything else I've read.

Lispector was transcendent from the beginning. I was at a loss many times while reading this. ‘Joana’s Walk,’ ‘Joana’s Joys,’ the confrontations with Lídia and Otávio—revelatory chapters that changed the way I understand my own feelings.

This book challenges the limits of a single thought. It scrambles time. It’s aware of its own nonsense and, beside that nonsense, possesses a clarity I’ve rarely encountered in literature…outside of Lispector’s other works.

I gave up on annotating. Joana was too absurd. I think it’s for the best that I couldn’t read this in Portuguese because if I got any closer to the full meaning I may have imploded.