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“No matter where this life takes you, there will always be someone in this world who loves you more than your imagination will allow you to understand. You’re never quite alone.”
Life owes Wes so hard for giving him nerdy genes, a pain-in-the-ass older brother, uncooperative curly hair, and the inability to skateboard.
It’s one of the many things he loves about Ella—her dry sense of humor. And how freaking brilliant she is. Plus, her kill-your-enemies-for-you loyalty. She’s the kind of friend Wes will never quit.
“But also, I don’t need your praises to validate my appearance. I reject your masculinist views on beauty and worthiness. My value surpasses physical attractiveness.”
She rejects the idea that anyone should seek out romance as an agency to existence.
Change can hurt but it leads to a road paved with better things.
“Book’s better than the movie.” “Aren’t they all?”
“I’m not single, I’m not taken, I’m simply on reserve for the one who deserves my heart.”
He’s so tired of this—the gay thing. The constant assumption that, because a guy is queer, he loves playing dress-up and lives for musicals and obsesses over Drag Race. He’s sick of the morbid perceptions of the LGBTQIA community. He’s sick of the stereotypes. There’s no one kind of queer person. There isn’t a right or a wrong version.
As if summoned through some demonic ritual involving a baby lamb’s heart and Fall Out Boy’s music collection, Ella pushes through the front door. She looks as if Hot Topic’s summer collection vomited over her.
Ella, however, doesn’t flinch. It’s a testament to who she is. She’s the type of person to stare a fire-breathing dragon in the eye and dare it to blow smoke her way.
He doesn’t know what it is that excites him when someone’s anything other than straight. Maybe it’s because people are taught that straight is the default, which makes him an exception. An unnatural exception according to a few too many politicians on television. How do people still think like that? How are people still holding on to immoral values and ignoring the fact that sexuality and gender are fluid?
Books are an escape. They’re a trapdoor into emotions and feelings and how the smallest events can be the most life-changing.
The silly kid always acts as though he owes the world when, really, it’s the other way around.
“I don’t know. Feelings are overrated,” Ella says. “They’re messy. And emotions, if allowed to run wild, are way too controlling.”
At a certain age, crushes stop being fun. They stop being these things that people secretly write about in diaries or online journals or in their next great fanfic story. Crushes become this damning thing: the ultimate hill one must climb. Because once someone gets over a crush, they can see what’s on the other side.
But the memories—damn it, Wes, we get to take the memories with us to wherever our next road may lead.”
“Stop trying to make an impact, Wes. Be the impact. For teens like Lucas. But also, for yourself.”
“But if you find someone who knows what it’s like to not be understood outside this store. Someone who gets how books can change your life. Someone you can lean on. Someone who doesn’t always get you, but is willing to try, starting with a book and a few words, then…”
Just love in general. Being capable of extending the walls of your heart to make room for someone else in there. Being vulnerable.”
“It turns out life isn’t a pile of bad days and then you fall in love with someone who fixes it all. Life is a series of embarrassing, funny, and sometimes brutal moments. Romance might be in there, too. But if you’re lucky, you’ll fall in love with your own amazingness and stumble upon a few kickass people to go on life’s adventures with you.”
“The worst thing you could do in this life is live it without ever knowing who you are,”
