The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

by Gabrielle Zevin

But me-also-thinks my latter-day reaction speaks to the necessity of encountering stories at precisely the right time in our lives. Remember, Maya: the things we respond to at twenty are not necessarily the same things we will respond to at forty and vice versa. This is true in books and also in life.

He wants to laugh out loud or punch a wall. He feels drunk or at least carbonated. Insane. At first, he thinks this is happiness, but then he determines it’s love.

She is seventy, and she believes you try new things or you may as well die.

A.J. has often reflected that, bit by bit, all the best things in the world are being carved away like fat from meat.

We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone.

My life is in these books, he wants to tell her. Read these and know my heart.

“We aren’t the things we collect, acquire, read. We are, for as long as we are here, only love. The things we loved. The people we loved. And these, I think these really do live on.”

“You tell a kid he doesn’t like to read, and he’ll believe you,”