More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
If you happen to find typos, mistakes, or errors, you may reach out to me so I can personally fix them.
Self published? Is she crowd-sourcing editors ahaha.
Life wasn’t pretty, but that’s what made it so fucking fun.
Life is fun because life is difficult - if it were easy, it would be boring. What does this tell us about Maddox? He wants to have fun but recognizes that means life might be difficult - or he is trying to rationalize life being hard? It's still kind of a terrible opener though.
my subconscious telling me to knock him out.
Why? Why do they hate each other so much?
Consequences floated around in the back of my mind, but fuck me, they were hard to grasp when all I saw was the manifestation of him on his ass, bleeding and begging.
Hatred but almost sexual - words are focused entirely on parts of the body (teeth, blood, mind, wrist, knckles, ass) as if neither one is totally human.
my knuckles rang out with pain that sang like harmony.
Simile - the pain feels good. He knows what kind of trouble he'll get into but doesn't care because hurting Devon is cathartic. Life is fun - but it will get difficult soon.
It wasn’t even about the girl. It was never about the girl.
So unimportant that she doesn't even get a name (yet?)
My temper exploded, and whenever that happened, there was nothing strong enough to pull me out of the frenetic energy that consumed me and my tunnel vision.
Hot temper, consumed by rage, and obsessed with Devon for a reason I don't know yet. Passionate.
My body bristled with the need to engage with him.
Again - a mixture of hatred and desire. We don't know why he hates Devon but there is a sexual undercurrent to it all.
I was stoic, silent, and lethal.
Characterization - but not quite accurate. If he was truly stoic he wouldn't show any emotion, and the entire chapter so far -as well as our introducton to these characters - is about him reacting to his emotions. Maddox doesn't really know himself (yet)
Devon was playfully dangerous, loudmouthed, and sinister.
Characterizaton of Devon - and Maddox thinks that Devon is DANGEROUS.
Why did we fight like this? It was just the hand we were dealt in life, and it’d been happening for so long that I think we needed it.
He only knows that he needs to fight Devon - treats it like fate? Like he can't imagine his life without him.
“Yeah, and you run yours. You might not say a lot, but the shit you do say is meant to hurt.
Brother knows Maddox better than he knows himself
In all aspects of life. I hated it, but I didn’t know how to live without it anymore.
He can't picture his life without Devon - obviously the best way to get him to stop is to ignore him, but Maddox cares way too much about Devon at this point - he is unable to be indifferent.
Our fights weren’t worth their bond, and as much as I hated it, I respected it. I’d never had a friendship like that.
True friendship transcends family. Found family?
Like I said, it wasn’t about her. Was never about the girl.
Still no name. She was never important to Maddox - not to the extent his brother and Devon are important to him.
Once we left camp and went back home, it’d be right back to shit jobs, money problems, a dead-beat dad, a wino mom, and the realities of being from Garron. A town where no one ever won.
Backstory - he hates is life and the only thing that makes him happy is motocross (and his brother).
emptiness was what I sought.
Again - doesn't know who he is or what he wants
If I was being completely honest, and despite the fact that it made me feel like an asshole, I only dated her because I heard Devon was interested.
The girl was never important - a symbol of the rivalry between the two and what they feel about one another.
I waded into the warm ocean water.
Water as rebirth - once he gets in the water he is able to wash away his anger and he shows that he wants things to get better.
Life certainly wasn’t pretty, but tomorrow would be.
Things will get better (one day) Mirrors the opening sentence, but also shows that he doesn't think life is fun, just difficult. Once again he doesn't know who he is or what he wants and is drifting through life, but even though he can't see a way out, he wants to believe that life will get better (eventually)
What wasn’t priceless was watching Devon and Nate pull into the trailer park in Garron, where we lived, to get laid into by their dad.
Hates Devon but doesn't want to see him hurt.
Paying him was easier than the aggression and the gaslighting, so even though I felt good about winning first place, the pride was all I’d get. The money would go straight to him.
So cut him off? Feels like he owes his parents even though he also feels like they don't care about him.
And it hurt Nate worst of all; he had to stand off to the side, held back by their dad’s redneck friends, watching his younger brother get hurt.
Characterization about Devon and Nate's father (that we see pay off later on in this chapter). He is violent and, as with Maddox's parents, only sees his children as a way of making money. The "redneck friends" holding back Nate also contrast to Maddox - they don't care about Devon and are indifferent to him - Maddox sees Devon's humanity (though not totally at this point - but he sees the human parts of Devon) - and he is unable to be disinterested in him.
He wouldn’t feel bad if the roles were reversed. He’d watched me get hit by my old man time and time again, and never once had I witnessed any sort of remorse or sympathy on his face.
We know how Maddox feels - and though we have yet to see anything from Devon's perspective, given that Maddox says that their fathers are similar, it's possible that Devon feels pity towards Maddox as well when he's being beaten.
It wasn’t right that we were stuck in this life—all of us—but I shouldn’t have to feel guilty for winning.
Goes back to his feelings in chapter 1 - he hates his life and the town that he lives in. The adults abuse him and he feels like nobody cares about him (except his brother). He just wants something good to happen to him - and yet when it does (him winning the Motocross event) he feels guilt. He is not used to happiness. As he says, part of his problem is that he feels stuck and he needs to find a way to leave.
If she didn’t care enough to help herself or didn’t have the capacity to do so, I couldn’t always play her hero.
We know that he takes care of his mother - so even if he can't always play the hero, he does play the hero enough. Him saying he doesn't care about his mother yet still taking care of her foreshadows the events later in this chapter with Devon.
We needed to run towards our own lives, even if they were shitty.
Reiteration of his motivation from elsewhere in the first two chapters - he feels stuck and wants to leave, but is unable to imagine a future where he will be happy; even motocross, the only thing (so far) that makes him feel happy is a source of guilt for him.
“Yeah, but we could still spend the summer together. We have good sex.”
The girl - Jules - finally has a name. But now we can see that she is similar to his parents in the sense that she only sees him as something that can fulfill her needs. It seems as if most people around him at this point (his ex-girlfriend, his parents, his boss) see him as a commodity that can be exploited and he recognizes this.
“Neither one of you is ever going to be happy. All you care about is fucking with each other and outdoing each other. It’s getting pathetic.”
She is echoing his brother (in a much more cruel way, while also giving insight into Devon) - the person Maddox cares most about is Devon (and vice versa) in that he wants to one-up him (though we know from earlier this chapter that Maddox also cares about Devon even if he doesn't recognize it or want to admit it. We've now had two separate characters tell Maddox this; it would not be surprising if more people were also aware of this.
I needed to check on my mom, keep an eye out the front window to make sure Devon and Nate survived their dad, and worry about Xavi going to meet our dad.
Even though he says he doesn't care about others, it shows that the people he prioritizes are his mother, Devon and Nate, and his brother. The mom is self-destructive (and we know nothing about her), but otherwise the people most likely to do harm are the fathers - showing that family isn't always important and that fathers can be dangerous - and can in fact be toxic towards their sons. Potential thematic thread?
I wasn’t supposed to feel sorry for him.
And yet he just informed us that he does care for him and watches out for him, even if he doesn't recognize it himself.
I grabbed the front of his shirt and tugged him through the door, slamming it shut behind him.
Once again, what he thinks and what he does are different - he does not know who he is but he shows that when somebody that he thinks he hates is in danger, he will protect him (again - we know already he doesn't hate him based on his earlier observations, even if he doesn't realize it, and this is further proof that he is not recognizing himself).
Finally, he stumbled down the steps and his car drove off.
Are we supposed to ignore the fact that he's driving drunk? More information about Garron Park (the place, not the book)?
This was karma.
This is not karma, it is irony
I took a hot second to remind myself I’d never be in this position again
Why does he need to remind himself of this? This goes back to the first chapter - he sees Devon as dangerous but hasn't specified why.
Whatever sort of truce this was, neither of us liked it.
He says they don't like it, and yet neither is really fighting it - they are wary of one another and dislike one another, but Maddox has already said he can't imagine his life without Devon and he doesn't dislike him as much as he dislikes many other people (again, fathers, who they need to protect themselves from).
I got it. Understood it. We didn’t want to become our parents.
This focuses on the future - he wants to leave town and he doesn't want to be like his parents, specifically his father. Neither of these are defined goals - he only knows what he doesn't want.
“But I get what it’s like. The dad shit.”
Once again the focus is on the toxicity of father-son relationships (while also recognizing that he and Devon are more alike than he might want to admit).
I was embarrassed, ashamed, and in so much fucking pain.
Embarassed about what?
Why? Why did he do it?
We know why - Maddox cares for people
Irony at its finest,
In chapter 2, Maddox described something as karma when he really meant that it was ironic. Here we see that Devon understands the difference, which shows a difference between the characters - Devon is presented as more analytical than Maddox.
I couldn’t even understand their friendship or how it had survived all our bullshit over the years.
Another contrast to Maddox - Maddox understands (believes?) that true friendship transcends other things, whereas Devon doesn't understand that. This also shows that Devon has low self-esteem - he believes that he would be the cause of his brother and his brother's best friend ending their friendship; Maddox knows that this won't happen and that the brothers don't live up to some code of masculinity that Devon seems to ascribe to.
Nothing about our lives was clean.
Shows similarity in outlook to Maddox - they aren't as different from one another as they think they are.
He handed me the water and stood there like an awkward fuck.
Devon uses a terrible simile - is this to show us how the concussion is affecting him? We know Maddox is taking care of Devon because he recognizes Devon's humanity, but Devon isn't used to people caring for him (except for his brother), and doesn't know how to handle this.
His voice was boring as fuck and his droning was practically putting me to sleep.
Maddox has said one sentence at this point - this is definitely showing us that Devon has a concussion, as well as the fact that he doesn't look onto the world as kindly as Maddox does.
His dark lashes rested on his cheeks, his dark brown hair was a bedhead mess, and his cheeks and chin were stubbled with a few days worth of growth.
Devon's description of Maddox is much more sensitive and delicate than Maddox's description of Devon (obviously context is different) - he may not like Maddox but he doesn't hate looking at him.
He looked less daunting while sleeping, but the sight of him still got me going. Everything this guy did pissed me off. He breathed—I wanted to kill him.
Like with Maddox's description of Devon in the first chapter, we can see that there is a sexual undertone to Devon's view of Maddox - he may say that he hates Maddox, but he feels passionately about him - the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference - and neither one of them feels indifferent to the other one.
What the actual fuck?
Yeah he senses that he's attracted to Maddox and he doesn't like it.
I’m sure if he looked, he’d notice I was pretty hard. It was just morning wood. A reaction I couldn’t help. It’d go away as soon as I took a piss.
Devon is lying to himself and he knows that he's lying to himself. Is this internalized shame? Or is there another reason?
That was comfortable. That was normal. I needed normal.
Devon wants things to stay as the status quo. He'd rather live a life that is safe, conventional, and dull - he can't see a better way out and so doesn't want things to change too dramatically because that means they might get worse.
