More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
She knew a thing or two about not having many friends, but fortunately, through thick and thin, she had her younger brother, Goose.
no one suspected that sometimes she used her needle as a tiny weapon, hurting people—just a little—to vent her own frustrations.
Hanna never wore makeup—and knew she didn’t need to. People trusted a naturally pretty face, an easy smile, and being perceived as approachable helped her move through life. And people would do things for a pretty person who knew just how to ask.
neon words came into focus above his head. Sometimes such words appeared to Hanna, helping her to understand other people’s emotions and attitudes.
she was an artist, too, working primarily in graphite.
He was exactly what she needed. A kind, financially stable, somewhat interesting widower, with tangential points of mutual interest.
The look on Jacob’s face as he watched the two of them return to the table was almost rapturous. And Hanna knew then and there: she had won. This was going to be her new family.
It wasn’t the woman’s fault that Hanna was having a bad day. She almost snickered thinking about the people who self-harmed to relieve a little stress; inflicting a little harm was so much better.
Such women liked hearing about their small veins: their small veins made them feel special, and in some cases they took it as a compliment—those thin veins. As if thinness—somewhere, anywhere—was desirable above all else.
I try to keep everything tucked away when they come to visit so I don’t have to answer too many questions.
Come to visit ? Does he not live at home with his parents ? Did he end up in some sort of mental health facility like his sister had ? Or maybe he’s at some fancy boarding school where they have dorms.
Brother dear, please: do as I say and not as I do. Someday I want you to fall in love for real.
No one’s life is perfect, and there may be unavoidable spasms of suffering along the way.
I love seeing the dark, wordless recesses of your mind.
Her interests had narrowed and shrunk, so she could quibble with her friends about the Marvel and DC universes.
Hey don't rag on the MCU.
There were only eight years separating them, but sometimes Joelle’s exuberant demeanor made Hanna feel old.
she started to learn the language of partial truths that other people accepted as normal.
Her TikToks regularly got twenty-five thousand views or more, usually in the first day, though sometimes an older video suddenly sprang back to life—and sometimes a video went viral, with views in the hundreds of thousands. She genuinely enjoyed sharing her work this way and seeing people’s reactions.
Being sixteen felt much older than watching sixteen.
So true
Hanna alternated between disapproving of how Jacob sheltered her, and admiring how he’d helped to preserve her innocence when the world around her was a catastrophic shit show.
it didn’t matter how much money you had or how perfect you looked from the outside. Family units were complicated and notoriously dysfunctional,
Perhaps some young women desired independence; Hanna had no interest in living alone.
Physical intimacy didn’t come naturally to her, unlike sex; sex was easy because she got something out of it. But she’d had to train herself to rub Jacob’s knee when they sat side by side, to caress his cheek when they were face to face. In truth, skin—other people’s skin—bothered her.
she thought of many of her drawings as memories. Once a vivid image settled in her mind—whether as a child or an adult—it lived there forever.
Bored, she tossed her phone aside, ready for the next act in the living theater of her married life. She really didn’t consider, or care about, the dishonesty of the script she’d written. Didn’t everyone play a role when it suited them?
lies are more trouble than they’re worth. Yes, yes they are. But you know that’s why I save lies as a tool of last resort.
Sis. Don’t have a kid for a shitty reason. Don’t have a kid for any reason less than it’s the only thing that will make you happy—and even then, think twice.
you know “conservatives” are opposed to abortion because every new human brings corporations more profit, right?—
Wooow ....I don't even know what to say to that... LMAO SMH.
Everyone was afraid Hanna would be jealous, angry. But just like Daddy and Mommy, Hanna wanted someone new to love too. She fell in love with baby Gustav. Each of them thought of Goose as theirs—Mommy’s normal child, Daddy’s baby boy, the sibling Hanna never had.
Hanna almost forgot that her unease around babies had been planted then. By her mother. Her mother’s distrust of her. Mommy had planted that seed, that Hanna posed a danger.
Yea… it’s not like you went psycho and tried killing your mom and left her permanently scarred or anything!
Everything to a young girl was so important, so consequential—yet so insignificant in light of greater injustices.
Perhaps Joelle wasn’t so much a liar but a hider, afraid of what people—her father, especially—would think of her multidimensional self.
When it lives outside of the womb, that’s a baby.
That aint true. If you miscarry at 6 months it's still very recognizably a baby.
Her lies flowed so smoothly. She must’ve had a lot of practice. Hanna remained torn between feeling betrayed and impressed.
It worried her a little that sometimes she wasn’t certain if she’d actually vocalized all the thoughts she’d meant to say;
(Hanna had never been to a prom, but from pop culture she’d gathered the impression that proms were an expensive, overly dressed form of foreplay.)
LOL
Hanna glanced at the counter to make sure no knives were within arm’s reach.
“I, we, wanted to let you know . . . ,” Boyd stammered. “I asked Joelle to marry me and she said yes.” Joelle grinned. Hanna did a spit take with her wine.
Lmao I was thinking thay perhaps he'd just want to do the honerable thing and marry her. Bless his heart.
Hanna envisioned grabbing the bottle from him and smashing it against his skull. No, that was too violent a thought. Excessive. She rewound the footage in her mind and imagined dumping the cabernet over his head instead.
“Go develop film” was one of those expressions that meant more than its surface words. Sometimes, like now, Jacob used it as a warning: I’m going somewhere where you can’t follow me; don’t open the door; I need to be alone now.
Hanna silently thanked the Goddess of Human Attributes for people like that, as they gave her an outlet for her own frustrations.
I still appreciate, however, that you took the time when I was six to help me make a BumbleBeast of my own.
(And unlike you, I wasn’t worthy of a fancy boarding school.)
Oh okay so he is away at school.
“If it was an emergency. But it’s not an emergency for me.”
Yes thank you! I'm Sick of hanna trying to manipulate Jo into aborting her child. If it's all about "mother's choice" then she's clearly choosing to keep her baby. Let's hope Hanna doesn't try to choose for her by throwing her down the stairs or something drastic.
Only once in Hanna’s life had she been truly infatuated, truly devoted to a man—and even though he’d been her father, he still hadn’t been capable of loving her unconditionally.
What if you acquired the abortion pill on your own? Could you dissolve it secretly into Joelle’s food?
Oh my god that would be such a violation. But guess I wasn't too far off the mark. She's doing something drastic alright
Her husband and stepdaughter needed to see only the good parts of her, so they’d have no reason to doubt or suspect her.
Her foundation was crumbling, and she didn’t know how to make him understand. All the truthful explanations were secrets.
she’d learned a long time ago that personal admissions could elicit sympathy—which in turn could mollify a person’s anger.
People liked to hear other people’s hardships and say, “There, there.” They liked to grant forgiveness and understanding because it made them feel like the better person.
