Fates and Furies

"His eagerness, his deep kindness, these were the benefits of his privilege. This peaceful sleep of being born male and rich and white and American and at this prosperous time, when the wars that were happening were far from home. This boy, told from the first moment he was born that he could do what he wanted. All he needed was to try. Mess up over and over, and everyone would wait until he got it right."

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Fates and Furies, p. 345
By Lauren Groff
Published 2015 by Riverhead Books

Chanson Douce

"The wind begins to blow in the evening, a sea wind, in which she can almost taste salt and utopias. She falls asleep there, on a deckchair, with a shawl covering her like a thin blanket. The cold dawn wakes her and she nearly cries out at the spectacle of the new day. A pure, simple, obvious beauty."

*

Chanson Douce (translated from the French as The Perfect Nanny), p. 68
By Leïla Slimani
Published 2016 by Penguin Books