Puddin' (Dumplin', #2)

by Julie Murphy

My magic truth—the thing that has changed everything for me—is this: the body I have shouldn’t change how deserving I am of my dreams. I stopped obsessing over my body being too round or too wide or too lumpy. Because I’m not too much of anything. I’m just enough. Even when I don’t feel like I am.

“I tell you,” she says, “love comes and goes, but lipstick is forever.”

“Find the things you love and do them every day, even if it means failing. That’s all there is to it.”

“We’re all dying,” says Abuela. “It’s just a slow process.”

“Girls don’t have to be nice,” she says simply. “But they should stick together.” She shakes her head. “The wider world wants you to think other women are drama . . . or catty. But that’s just because when we work together, we’re unstoppable.” “But you have Aurelia. She’s, like, your ride or die. I don’t have a lifelong BFF like that.” “You will. One day you’ll wake up and find that there’s a woman, or maybe a few, who have outlasted every changing season in your life.”

Amanda shakes her head, eyes wide. “That’s like some Jurassic Park stuff. Do you know Jeff Goldblum?” Abuela chuckles. “No, but that movie got one thing right.” “What’s that?” I ask. She grins. “God created dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs. Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth.”

“Even the wrong direction sometimes feels better than no direction at all.”

“Sometimes you have to fake it till you make it.

GLASS HALF FULL, GLASS HALF EMPTY. BE THANKFUL YOU’VE GOT A GLASS AT ALL.

People aren’t always gonna get it right on the first try. They’re not always gonna say yes when they should. And sometimes you just gotta swallow rejection and move on, but sometimes you have to refuse to take no for an answer. For the next twenty-four hours, ‘no’ is not in our vocabulary.”

And why is everyone always trying to take money away from libraries? Aren’t books sort of the reason we’re even in school at all?