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Kindle Notes & Highlights
Stars pass through the sky. Minutes pass through the night. Flowers bloom and die. You can try to hold fast to the people you love, but everything changes.
These few sentences are beautiful and profound.
flashing a smile that I couldn’t help noticing was really cute.
Slater has a crush on Tilly! Too cute!
The day she punched Newton she was wearing jeans and my Nantucket hoodie. Pretty daring of her to wear it straight up in public without my permission—we’ve always been a little possessive of our clothes—and I know she was wearing it for a reason.
This author definitely knows how sisters work… sharing clothes is definitely a thing that is disputed. Although, in my experience, unless it was something I wanted to wear that day, it made me feel good to share my clothes with my little sis. I wonder if anyone else shares that feeling…
And the totally psycho thing was, I wanted to talk to him later.
Are they going to become an item? For Roo’s sake, I hope Tilly keeps her distance… but it feels like that’s where the author is going.
Not like Roo’s sister, the way he always had, but as something more. Was I wrong? I hoped so, and I hoped not.
As much as I’d wished I had a talent like hers, right now I knew I didn’t deserve one.
That’s a hard way to look at oneself.
Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it. “My sister painted that quote,” Martha said. “It’s from Roald Dahl.”
Dr. Howarth’s eyes were on Roo, and she and he were communicating on the letter board: You came just for me? Was she flirting? Dr. Howarth squeezed her hand and nodded. “I certainly did, Roo,” he said. Major recoil and ewww. The look in his eyes was so fake, acting all interested and staring at Roo as if the rest of us weren’t even here.
I nearly laughed out loud at work during a break as I read these lines… ah, to be a teenager!
“It’s going to be okay, Roo,” he said. “I’ve got you.” No, you don’t, I wanted to say. No one does. I’m alone and it’s horrible. Somehow he knew. He crouched down so he was eye level with me. I had to fight to stay alert, to see what he was trying to say with his eyes. I saw them asking me to relax, to trust him. “Beautiful girl,” he said. I’m quadriplegic and I’m bald! I wanted to scream. “So lovely and brilliant. I can’t wait to be able to talk to you. And this operation will allow it.” I don’t want it! Stop! Make everything go back to the way it was, make me whole, make me real again. I
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Some of this feels really creepy, like Dr. Howarth is in-genuine and lusting after her… or it’s completely innocent and I’m just reading into it. Still, at first, through Roo’s eyes, I thought I could trust him… but now that I’ve seen what Tilly sees in him, I can’t unsee it.
I went back to sleep and had many dreams. In one, Newton was giving Tilly a ride on his shoulders. They were on the beach at Hubbard’s Point. I was underwater, a giant blob without arms or legs, but I could see everything. She flew like a bird, and he caught her. They kissed, and no matter how loudly I screamed, they couldn’t see me under the waves.
It’s kinda sad… but I also want Tilly and Newton to end up together… but then I don’t because of Roo
I wondered, could you only be a wonderful person if you had a positive attitude?
I wonder that too. It’s sometimes difficult to be little miss sunshine.
We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it.
She told us that singers have to sing, or they get sick. A person has to use her talents, Tilly.”
“We can have the best intentions,” she said. “And still hurt the person we love so much.
the moon never changes.”
“I know one thing, Tilly. When it comes to sisters, there’s no such thing as broken.”
“The idea is not to stop the thoughts—they will come, that’s normal. But we can stop following them, and learn to let them go. So instead of worrying everything to death, chewing it over and over, we allow the thoughts to come and go. But our mind needs somewhere peaceful to land—our breath.”
But only you can bring yourself up.
I’ve heard people say this to me before too, but how can you lift yourself up if all you feel is negativity? I know that’s the whole point, but it’s incredibly hard to make yourself cheerful when you’re not.
‘You’ll have many friends in life, but only one sister.’
I love this quote!
“Roo, here’s the secret of life,” Martha said. “You get to be a sister only because you have Tilly. Without each other, that goes away. You’re still beautiful and talented, but you’re not a sister. It’s the alchemy of sisters, Roo.”
Martha, you studied poetry at college? I asked. “Yes,” she said. “People think they need to take economics or business, practical subjects that teach skills. But there’s nothing more practical than poetry. No matter which career you choose, how can you do your best in it, understand life the way it really is, without poems?”
“‘Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage,’”
but inside I glowed.
Please fall in love with Slater! I think it would be better for everyone if Tilly and Slater ended up together.
There was a tense vibe between Newton and Slater, and it felt like it had to do with me. Was Slater jealous of the kiss? And Newton seemed to be giving him a serious once-over. It made me nervous, but also gave me a secret thrill, honestly.
LOVE TRIANGLES! Gotta love them!
We’re not our disabilities.
This applies to mental disabilities too.
‘Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage.’
This was how we knew we were sisters—we had a language for it, deeper than words, that no one else, even our parents, could know. We spoke it both awake and in our dreams, and it told the story of us.
