I mentioned how slow I’d been to write a review of French Exit by Patrick deWitt. I read it in February – can’t remember much except that I laughed out loud and loved every moment. So, a mix tape instead…

4/5 Dark and hilarious.

We’re Going To Be Friends | The White Stripes

Their friendship began with a pistol shot, it seemed; they loved each other from the start and it had been this way all the time since.

Don’t Throw it All Away | Andy Gibb

He was a pile of American garbage and she feared she would love him forever.

We Got the Beat | The Go-Go’s

“I keep trying to march in time but the drummer’s out to get me.”

Aqua Profunda! | Courtney Barnett

He described himself as an avid swimmer but Susan found he did not swim so much as float; he did not wish to exercise, but to experience submersion and wetness.

Unwritten | Natasha Bedingfield

She’d not met anyone like him before and she admired him for his uncommon, complicated, almost entirely untenable belief systems.

All We Know | The Chainsmokers (Synchronice & AERYN cover)

As one who suffered from seasickness, he asked her to reconsider air travel. Frances was apologetic but immovable: she was engaging her crisis in full dramatic tilt and wanted, needed to face the limitless ocean with a terrific, stabbing pain in her heart.

Wrecking Ball | Miley Cyrus

Frances said, “I ran from one brightly burning disaster to the next, pal. That’s the way I was. Possibly you won’t like to think of your mother as one who lived, but I’ll tell you something: it’s fun to run from one brightly burning disaster to the next.”

Forever Young | Youth Group

“Do you ever feel,” she asked, “that adulthood was thrust upon you at too young an age, and that you are still essentially a child mimicking the behaviours of the adults all around you in hopes they won’t discover the meager contents of your heart?”

So Far Away | Carole King

“What you want is to know someone’s there; you also want them to leave you alone. I’ve got that with Don. But, I was shocked because I suddenly understood that the heart takes care of itself. We allow ourselves contentment; our heart brings us ease in its good time.”