More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
(Terribly sorry, I imagine it saying; apparently, the wind is British, wondering how it got all the way over here)
The indie kids, huh? You’ve got them at your school, too. That group with the cool-geek haircuts and the thrift shop clothes and names from the fifties. Nice enough, never mean, but always the ones who end up being the Chosen One when the vampires come calling or when the alien queen needs the Source of All Light or something. They’re too cool to ever, ever do anything like go to prom or listen to music other than jazz while reading poetry. They’ve always got some story going on that they’re heroes of. The rest of us just have to live here, hovering around the edges, left out of it all, for
...more
The rest of us just have to live here, hovering around the edges, left out of it all, for the most part.
Having said that, the indie kids do die a lot. ...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
And even if there’s no one in my family or my circle of friends who’s going to be the Chosen One or the Beacon of Peace or whatever the hell it’s going to be next time around, I reckon there are a lot more people like me than there are indie kids with unusual names and capital-D Destinies (though I’m being mean here; they’re often quite nice, the indie kids, just . . . they’ve got a clan and they’re sticking to it).
What happens to you when you get older? Do you just forget everything from before you turned eighteen? Do you make yourself forget?
She makes this sound both impressive and a sad, sad waste of time.
The Silvennoinens are as complicated as anyone else. More, if you count trying to say their last name out loud.
It’s a great job. I’m lucky. It’s a great job. (But do you have any idea how dirty restaurants are?)
(What do you want from us? We’re suburban. We live for shit like limos.)
You see how lucky I am? Knowing that people love me? So lucky. So stupidly lucky.
In my lifetime, we’ve had 1) the undead, 2) those soul-eating ghosts, 3) the vampire cycle of romance and death, and 4) whatever might be happening now with the body of Finn and the terrified deer, if they’re even connected (they’re probably connected). When Jared’s granddad was a teenager, they had Gods.
He also can’t do anything about what’s wrong inside our heads—what’s in your head is still illness but way more complicated than any muscle ache; those times he saves me from the loops, he’s just saving me as a friend, rather than a God—but he’s made a whole lot of other shit a whole lot easier.
But I don’t care what you think, not about these things anyway. If you don’t think they’re real or important or you think that we’ll all grow out of this nonsense, well, that’s not really my business. I can’t tell you what’s real for you. But in return, you can’t say what’s real for me either. I get to choose. Not you.
We sit down on the couch, turning on the muted television for light. A topless woman with a gun in each hand is shooting Asian people down a long hallway. Then her cut-off jean shorts are obviously bothering her, so she takes those off and—now wearing only a G-string—keeps on shooting. I don’t understand the world sometimes.
Kooky Alzheimer’s in movies really pisses me off. You know, where Grandma is sweet and funny and says hilarious-but-wise things right on cue? Real Alzheimer’s is nothing like that. Nothing. It’s terrifying and annoying and so sad you want to kill yourself.
I want her so much, my heart feels heavy, like I’m grieving. Is this what they meant about that stomach feeling? They didn’t say it felt this sad.
He puts more stuff on my face. And yeah, I know most people would think it weird that two guy friends touch as much as we do, but when you choose your family, you get to choose how it is between you, too. This is how we work. I hope you get to choose your family and I hope it means as much to you as mine does to me.
Satchel goes into hiding at an abandoned drive-in with fellow indie kids Finn, Dylan, Finn, Finn, Lincoln, Archie, Wisconsin, Finn, Aquamarine, and Finn;
It’s like when adults say world news isn’t our worry. Why the hell isn’t it?
If you’re too specific, people will purposely mishear you so they can be outraged about whatever thing that usually outrages them. You want to get them on your side emotionally, apparently, where they ask fewer questions.
They want us a bit dumb and a bit afraid. Which for the most part, I think we are.
“What do you do when your dreams are about to come true?” she asks. “No one ever tells you. They tell you to chase them, but what happens when you actually catch one?” “You enjoy it. Do your best, try not to be a dick.”
“The mistake of every young person is to think they’re the only ones who see darkness and hardship in the world.”
“The mistake of every adult, though, is to think darkness and hardship aren’t important to young people because we’ll grow out of it. Who cares if we will? Life is happening to us now, just like it’s happening to you.”
“Not everyone has to be the Chosen One. Not everyone has to be the guy who saves the world. Most people just have to live their lives the best they can, doing the things that are great for them, having great friends, trying to make their lives better, loving people properly. All the while knowing that the world makes no sense but trying to find a way to be happy anyway.”
“Feelings don’t try to kill you, even the painful ones. Anxiety is a feeling grown too large. A feeling grown aggressive and dangerous. You’re responsible for its consequences, you’re responsible for treating it. But Michael, you’re not responsible for causing it. You’re not morally at fault for it. No more than you would be for a tumor.”
“I don’t do pity kisses,” she says. “I don’t do pity anything. Pity is patronizing. Pity is an assumption of superiority.”
“It is my dad, but he’s right. He says kindness is better. Kindness is the most important thing of all. Pity is an insult. Kindness is a miracle.”
And that was the end of our high school. Which was only eight years old, because it had replaced the last one that had been blown up to destroy the soul-eating ghosts. The circle of life, I guess.
“Everything’s always ending. But everything’s always beginning, too.” “God,” Henna says, “that would have been a much better prom theme than ‘Forever Young.’”
