Foundations by Abigail Stewart

What a ride this book was. Do not be fooled by the small dimensions of it; this short novel is a tricky read. This year is definitely leaning toward’ the shorter the better’ reading wise at least in my experience so far.

We follow 3 women, 3 different generations starting from the 60s up until now living in the same ranch house in Dallas. We start with Bunny who is a housewife and even though her husband doesn’t think anything too much about her (or anyone, or to think at all for that matter) she is a frequent library visitor she lights her cigarettes leaning over the stove which I thought was the most badass move I have read in a while.

“Her blood ran red like any other warm-blooded American woman, but Bunny knew her insides were inky black, a mixture of oil and water she’d never be free of.”

 One day she picks up a book about palm reading and the next thing we know is that she is holding a seance in her home.

In the second part, we get to know Jessica who is an actress running away from Los Angeles and all that it comes with by buying this same house roughly in the 80s this time. And even though she was living alone in this house it wasn’t the suffocating housewife kind of loneliness. Being caged. It was liberating and more importantly: chosen. It was a decision made by herself instead of letting life choose for her. Still, things did not go exactly as smoothly as she thought in the beginning.

In the 3rd part of the book, we get to know Amanda who is trying to flip the exact same house while trying to ace the mainstream reality tv-show with it at the same time. She is everything that keeps lurking out from the screen these days from kombucha to bullet journaling but she is still facing the same problem of not being seen, heard or understood.

The book ran me over like a tractor on a wheat field. I just fell in love with the idea of Bunny and the others. The way the author portrayed her and the other two characters: Jessica and Amanda. Their loneliness is a way of liberation from being a conventional female. I just loved the idea that I, as a person, sitting here right now and enjoying my own company does not necessarily mean I’m lonely or (worse) lazy. Of course, we have the husband of Bunny who is the blueprint of every bulged vein on a woman’s forehead when she doesn’t feel being seen, heard or even acknowledged in her existence. And of course, we also have Amanda’s boyfriend who is an updated version of the former but still has the same exact end result. But if I want to be honest I don’t think this book was about how bad men are at all. It was more about taking the courage to be an individual. To be able to stand on your feet perfectly fine without feeling even the slightest vertigo. That you do not necessarily need anyone to feel seen, heard or understood if you can do it by yourself in the first place. I mean flowers girl, flowers.