The Upside of Unrequited

by Becky Albertalli

I don’t entirely understand how anyone gets a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. It just seems like the most impossible odds. You have to have a crush on the exact right person at the exact right moment. And they have to like you back. A perfect alignment of feelings and circumstances. It’s almost unfathomable that it happens as often as it does.

You know, when you’re seventeen, everything feels like the end of the world. Or the beginning of the world. And that’s an awesome thing.”