More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
The smell of Magic Marker wafted in the air as he taped it across Bright Star One.
(including a Barbie that Bird had never played with, and her brothers’ plastic toolbox, which she had)—and
Her parents were talking in low voices. That was a good sign. Bird
Their old VCR was on the carpet, a thin coat of dust and a tangle of wires on top.
Machines had the best guts.
And her: outside, floating. In silence.
There was no prize. Only glory.
enough. The words came out casually but firmly, as they always did, and he swallowed a thick seed of embarrassment. As he always did.
Cash took off without answering. Converse high-tops hitting cold gravel. He jumped as high as he could when he reached the wall, but he fell short. Just as he always did.
Bird prided herself on being the most reliable gear in the Nelson Thomas Family Device, so when she walked into the kitchen the next morning, she was cheerful—as cheerful as she could be at seven-thirty in the morning, anyway—but ready for anything.
Tammy Nelson Thomas often lectured Bird that looks were not important, yet she seemed preoccupied with them anyway—specifically her weight, which had ticked upward over the years, and Bird’s weight, which had not ticked anywhere, but apparently could skyrocket at any moment.
families. Sometimes you just knew what your family was up to, even if you couldn’t see them.
Bird listened to them now, with her ear pressed against the door. She
Consensus. When Bird’s parents argued, one of them usually wound up leaving the house for a few hours. One time her mom stayed away overnight. Apparently they never came to a consensus, since their arguments often repeated themselves.
What a world Danielle Logan lived in. Treehouses and consensus.
As soon as people knew you were good at something, they started expecting things from you, and Fitch was perfectly happy living in a world where nothing was expected of him.
Their friendship seemed built on personal failures.
Sometimes Bird wondered what would happen if she ever dismantled the television. Would she find one of those swinging pendulums inside, the kind hypnotists use to put people to sleep?
That a person can be surrounded by other people and still feel alone.
Resnik: Loneliness is an emotion. It comes from inside, not outside.
He looked right, then left. Like he was searching the air for words.
“Oh,” Bird said. That one syllable was the only sound she was capable of making, apparently.
He couldn’t take it anymore. The unsaid apology followed him everywhere. He wanted
understand. But to be small is not to be inconsequential. Never mistake size for might.”
If you have no expectations, you have no disappointments.
