More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
The only time I don’t hate him is when I think he’s mad at me.
Part of me is proud that she gets to have all this—knowing that we come from the same place and that she’s earned it. Another part of me wonders if she’s secretly Republican.
June knows everything there is to know about a handful of subjects. On everything else, she’s wildly indifferent.
Having a genius for an older sister, who scored a full ride to Columbia, has not been optimal for my professional self-esteem.
I wonder if in a few years this will have been the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. Or if things get worse. If this moment defines me as an adult, I need to know right now by how much.
It’s absurd that there are so many people walking around who aren’t sick. And still so many others who are. I googled it. There are seventeen million new cancer cases every year. I don’t know how to conceptualize that number. I don’t even know what one million looks like.
I’ve always felt safer off the ground.
I don’t know where the humiliation ends and the rage begins or if those two sentiments are ever unlinked.
How can I ever get to know a place that changes so quickly? I’m late enough as it is.
It was fascinating that if the feeling of impending doom and dread made my limbs leaden and my head cottony, no one ever found out. You could get away with anything if no one cared enough to check.
What’s the point? The planet is on fire and everything is random. June is one of the smartest people I know and she got a job at a prestigious hedge fund without a master’s because her first roommate was a finance scion who also happened to be obsessed with Animal Crossing and shojo manga.
I know that attending college is like praying to God. It’s not that you believe in it; you do it just in case. Because other people are.
Instead I check Tinder. I swipe and swipe and swipe and swipe. It’s dazzling how disposable we all are.
I love therapy so much. Mostly because I’m an excellent patient.
She said that there was more than one type of perfectionist. And that I qualified because the kind of perfectionist I was, was the kind that abandoned everything if I wasn’t good enough at it. And that’s why I couldn’t finish tasks.
There’s nothing more humiliating than trying so hard for everyone to see and still ending up a loser.
I also hadn’t known that certain cancers are overfunded, like breast cancer and leukemia, whereas esophageal and uterine cancers are underfunded. Even the scariest diseases aren’t immune to branding.
I want her to tell me the day, the hour, and the exact minute when she’ll die. And I want her to go away so I can start preparing for it now with zero new memories because I have enough that I’ll miss.
Cancer must feel like such betrayal, knowing that somewhere deep in your body you’re manufacturing tiny bombs that detonate and catch fire.
The totality of death is inconceivable. It’s intolerable that you’re completely, utterly, irrefutably alive, filled up with decades of inside jokes, goofy facial expressions, all the love of your family, and then not.
Where everything was so flat you could feel all hundred and eighty degrees of sky at your shoulders. Where if you lay on your back looking up at the sky, it felt so heavy you couldn’t breathe. It was as if the horizon could crush you.
If they show you who they are, believe them.
Oh my God. What did I ever do to him? Honestly, what kind of psychopath sets read receipts on?
June always wants to watch Gilmore Girls. I make her start on season two, when Jess appears. June likes Dean, which is all you really need to know about her even though I’m a Logan apologist, which makes me emotionally unwell.
lol
It’s been forever since she texted me. She usually calls because she’s an emotional terrorist.
Sometimes my memories are so remote they may as well have happened to someone else.
I might live in a hovel, but at least I want her to see how normal people store their mugs.
I give her the good mug, offering it to her with the handle facing out, burning the shit out of my fingertips.
Mom hates turkey. “What a tasteless bird to eat,” she says. “And so huge.” She thinks it’s a perfect allegory for American food.
“Our Mom,” I correct her saltily, thinking about her clear soup with the oxtail and the turnip. “Whatever. I’ve known her longer,”
It’s the diabolical headfuck of reading your own name on a tombstone.
My sister is not a good person. And she is not my friend. And the pathetic truth is, I’m devastated.
It’s easier to watch myself be sad than actually feel sad.
I’m trying not to work for evil people, even peripherally. I’ll probably starve, but I’m okay for now.”
I like Patrick so much. Even if his ethics feel like poetry in that the meaning behind the words evade me.
Families are such fucked-up tiny cults.” “Makes sense,” he says. “Marriages are the original tiny cult.” “Siblings too.”
The funny thing about having an older sibling play babysitter is that you’re only vaguely aware that they’re also a child.
When it’s over, I feel like I’ve failed to make it better for myself. That it’s somehow my fault that I’m startled each time.
It’s the way they aggressively and incessantly initiate sex. The way I always feel cornered, by the text, in the bar, in the car, in their apartments. Sometimes I wonder if I’m confused by how purposeful they are. They’re so sure they want sex that I try to convince myself I must be wrong about my ambivalence.
All the sex I’ve ever had seemed inevitable. It wasn’t wrought but ordained. It was like watching someone fall from a height.
June will be giving birth to her own womb.
“You know, we’re trained not to use the word ‘pain,’ but I can see how discrediting that can be.” “It scares the shit out of me,” says June. “It makes me feel like you’re going to downplay everything because of some malpractice lawsuit and I’m going to be in fucking agony.” “I get that,” says Dr. Ramirez, nodding slowly. “So, I’ll call it pain.”
“I have literal fucking cancer but we both know… we both know that you’re sicker than me.”
“June.” I say it slowly. “If you die, then Jayne Ji-young Baek is dead. I’ll be dead at the hospital. They’ll file a death certificate in my name. I’ll be dead at school. New York City, New York State, the United States of America—they’ll all think I’m dead. Your will won’t matter. You’re the one who’ll be alive in name, June. It’ll be me and Mom’s dead baby who will be gone. I’ll be fucking trapped in some nameless purgatory. I’ll be some in-between ghost.”
Airport departure halls are like enormous day care centers where every adult baby has a credit card.
I’ve never gone home before. I was only ever there already.
This is everything you need to know about our mother. That she’d exit a moving vehicle because she believes she’s faster on foot.
