Dumplin' (Dumplin', #1)

by Julie Murphy

“Plus, having sex doesn’t make you a woman. That is so freaking cliché. If you want to have sex, have sex, but don’t make it this huge thing that carries all this weight. You’re setting yourself up for disappointment.”

“I—I’m sorry for asking. I have the manners of a cat in a box of bubble wrap. Like, it’s a problem.” “No,” he says. “It’s not that. I don’t mind talking to you. So don’t apologize for it, okay? I just don’t do much talking. It takes getting used to.”

“My mom died. Five years ago. And I guess I like to think that wherever she is, her sky has meteor showers, too.”

Each word is a naked patch of him, and I want so badly to add up all the bread crumbs I have and make sense of him.

I like the idea of keeping my world in these little compartments where there is no risk of collision.

My first kiss, which took place behind Harpy’s Burgers & Dogs and next to a Dumpster full of day-old trash. Yet, it was perfect. Every bone in my body aches, like I’ve been in a car accident and there’s nothing physically wrong with me, but still I can feel the impact of it everywhere.

Surprising even myself, I don’t answer. I kiss him. I kiss Bo Larson. And when he parts his lips with mine, I don’t think about it. Because for the first time in my life, I fit. I fit without any question.

when Bo’s lips move against mine, I can think of nothing outside of us.

Then there are days when I really give zero flying fucks, and I am totally satisfied with this body of mine. How can I be both of those people at once?

I think maybe it’s the things we don’t want to talk about that are the things people most want to hear.

This in-box full of unopened messages is the truest reminder that we are temporary fixtures in a permanent world.

Perfection is nothing more than a phantom shadow we’re all chasing.

I think you gotta be who you want to be until you feel like you are whoever it is you’re trying to become. Sometimes half of doing something is pretending that you can.”

Beautiful, he says. Fat, I think. But can’t I be both at the same time?

I think that my whole world has cracked into all these little pieces, and the only way I can go about fixing it is one shard at a time.

There’s something about swimsuits that make you think you’ve got to earn the right to wear them. And that’s wrong. Really, the criteria is simple. Do you have a body? Put a swimsuit on it.