Reading time: Just over 2 minutes
I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about a series of similes from Claire Lombardo….
Claire Lombardo (pictured above), is a fiction writer, teacher, and 2017 graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her first novel, The Most Fun We Ever Had, was released in June 2019 and debuted on the New York Times Bestseller list.
The Most Fun We Ever Had is an easy-to-read book with some fine figurative language. Here are my favourite examples:
- She followed Loomis to the study, and she paused before she entered, watching her husband’s back, the vulnerable fuzz on his neck, the hint of a bald spot spreading from the crown of his head like a galaxy.
- “I wanted to discuss my grade on the midterm paper.” She held it out like a summons.
- But she didn’t feel like Violet should be let off the hook quite so easily, sweeping in an out with the ease of a summer storm.
- Her defenses rose quickly, popped up like springs, and she pulled her hand away.
- And for a while he’d seemed to rally, as though the unexpected news were a potion she’d injected directly into his veins, and she began to wonder if it could possibly be this easy, if all it would take to get Ryan back to his old self was a big surprise, a little jolt, an ice pack to the amygdala.
- Their yard was immaculate, save for the ailing ginkgo tree, stationed in the center like a lighthouse.
- “Liza’s really pretty but she has the terrible color of hair that’s, like, not even a color? Ecru. Like a Band-Aid.”
- She propped herself up onto an elbow, cradling an arm around Wendy’s head, and he pushed himself up too, curving around their daughter a couple of protective apostrophes.
- His wife and daughters sniffed out potential weaknesses with acute drug-dog noises, suspicious, nurturing German shepherds who could spot his oncoming head colds or emotional fragility in a way that seemed almost superhuman.
- She held the anger back, stored it in the space behind her molars, biting down, every so often, and allowing herself to revel in the injustice.
- There was a nervy ache in her neck whose presence she was nursing like a plant, leaning into it and setting the soreness ablaze, feeding it all of her negative thoughts.