Belle

“You're becoming. You're in the process of becoming. You just don't know what yet.
That felt right. It felt okay to stop there, for now, as we walked through the future.”
― David Levithan, You Know Me Well

“We are a country built by immigrants, dreams, daring, and opportunity. We are a country built by the horrors of slavery and genocide, the injustice of racism and exclusion. These realities exist side by side. It is our past and our present. The future is unwritten. This is a book about ghosts. For we live in a haunted house.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“As I write this, we are in an especially divisive era in American politics. There are questions about who holds power, who abuses it, who profits from it, and at what cost to our democracy. It is a time of questions about what makes us American, of shifting identities, inclusion and exclusion, protest, civil and human rights, the strength of our compassion versus the weakness of our fears, and the seductive lure of a mythic "great" past that never was versus the need for the consciousness and responsibility necessary if we are truly to live up to the rich promise of "We the People."

We are a country built by immigrants, dreams, daring, and opportunity.

We are a country built by the horrors of slavery and genocide, the injustice of racism and exclusion. These realities exist side by side. It is our past and present. The future is unwritten.

This is a book about ghosts.

For we live in a haunted house.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You

“In this life, you have to work with people you dislike. You find compromises. But sometimes you find that a person's beliefs are so harmful that you must speak against them. You can't let such harmful statements stand without challenge. They have a tendency to grow into tumors.”
― Libba Bray, Before the Devil Breaks You