More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
A white Toyota Yaris covered in bumper stickers that said things like JESUS IS COMING, LOOK BUSY, and MY OTHER CAR IS A TARDIS pulled up short, breaks wheezing to a halt, as a lean teenage boy in a faded Marco’s T-shirt stumbled out with a pizza in hand.
Cindy and her father, whose only religion was Thursday Pizza Night, sat in the living room, where they ate directly from the box.
A dog, it turned out, was not the best thing to offer your wife when her biological clock was ticking.
The only place that feels like home anymore is the apartment I just packed up.
Mean teenage girls and awkward interactions with living, breathing Prince Charmings. Some things never change.
which is no small feat for anyone, much less a plus-size girl in a flying tuna can.
You know, the exsqueeze me had almost endeared him to me, but then he had to go and call me babe.
I feel that eager twitch in my chest like when your sense of humor perfectly aligns with someone else’s. It’s like scrolling through radio stations. Static, static, static, and then suddenly—click!—they’re on the right wavelength.
Instead, all the grief I’d ignored and shoved off after Dad died hit me all at once.
LOL SAME
“We lost the virgin from Kentucky. Something about her grandma being upset or—I don’t know. And then turns out the swimsuit model from Miami isn’t bisexual. She’s monosexual…for women.”
“You’re not fat! Don’t say that about yourself.”
👁️👄👁️
“I think fairy tales might be more like cautionary tales than anything else. And fate is just an excuse for people to be inactive participants in their own lives.”
I can’t help but feel like this place isn’t my own. It’s just another stop on a long search for home.
“What I really want to know is who actually considers beanbags to be appropriate dressing room seating?”
Nothing says You’re my only living almost parent like a goodbye side hug.
I feel fidgety and anxious without my phone, so I guess it turns out I’m more addicted to that little brick of technology than I thought.
I don’t believe in fate. I can’t. I refuse to believe that first Mom and then Dad dying was part of some grand scheme. If that’s true, whatever’s at the end of my rainbow isn’t worth what it will have cost me.
When someone calls me brave for going out or wearing a fitted dress or for some other normal thing that every other girl does, what it really means is: I would be mortified to look like you, but good for you for merely existing even if all I can think about is how fat you are and how I’m terrified I’ll one day look like you. So brave.
Don’t you see how belittling this is! I’m not brave for wearing a dress. I’m just living!
“Good afternoon, Henry,” we all say back to him in a singsong voice that makes us sound like Charlie’s Angels and actually makes me a little bit queasy.
“Ever since I was a kid, I loved the way that clothing could transform you. I’ve…I’ve always been fat. Plump as my dad used to say. And people are so quick to make up their minds about me before I even open my mouth. My style is a chance for me to express myself and to maybe even make someone rethink their snap judgment. But that’s just a small part of it. I love the lines. I love that it’s art you can wear. I hate how inaccessible and distant art can feel, but you can walk into Target and walk out dressed as a piece of art. That’s something almost anyone can do.”
“Yes, like who actually decided a button fly was a good idea, and is it actually safe to carry a hammer in the loop on a pair of carpenter jeans?”
I grin down at her as I take out my mouthpiece. “Just playing by the rules. Moo, bitch. Moo.”
All I can hear is him telling me he’d rather lie naked in a pit of scorpions than fly on a helicopter.
“You’re like an antidepressant in human form,” I tell her. “I guess it’s just the librarian in me taking over.
Even the towels are huge, which—as someone who has never been able to wrap a hotel towel around themselves without a massive gap showcasing the goods—is an extravagance.
“Oh my God, that’s amazing!” That would be huge for a show this big to expand like that. It would definitely send a very clear message. Besides, queer people deserve to have their bad romantic decisions documented for the whole country to consume, too.
“Is that you, Cabbage Patch? Mon petit chou?” “Mon petite what? I think the last time I could be described as petite, I was still in pull-ups.” “My little cabbage,” he tells me. “It’s French.” “Oh, fancy boy knows French, does he?”
“Okay, first off—men don’t want their partners to be their mothers…and if they do, those aren’t the men we’re looking for.”
What do I do with my hands? Do they just hang like limp spaghetti? How do models manage to look cool doing this? Maybe I just need to do the Zoolander pout. Tyra Banks’s voice telling me We were rooting for you rings in my ears.
Well, lady, it was either this or walk the runway naked. Maybe start making clothing in my size and I won’t have to take a pair of scissors to your work.
It’s all a blur, like when you zone out at the wheel and immediately wonder how it is that you even got home.
The truth, though, is that clothing is fashion and fashion should be for everyone because clothing should be for everyone.
“How do you know her type?” I ask. “Her type could be Stanley Tucci for all we know.” “Actually,” Stacy says, “Stanley Tucci is everyone’s type.”
“He’s dead to me,” Drew says, like a switch has flipped in her brain. “Scorched earth. Dead to me.” Anna nods. “His pulse is nonexistent. The doctor is pronouncing the time of death as now o’clock. They’re calling the morgue. He’s dead.”
And there it is. I fell in love. I’m in love with Henry Mackenzie. I always assumed I would have a difficult time knowing if I was in love. What if I didn’t recognize the signs? Or what if it wasn’t as intoxicating as the whole world has built it up to be? But, for me, it feels very simple. It’s the kind of thing I know with just as much assurance as my birthday. It’s not something I feel lost in or confused by. It’s a truth, and some truths hurt more than others.
Choose what makes you happy. Things, places, people. Only choose the ones that bring that delight to you. Don’t be a hostage to duty or obligation. I didn’t carry you and birth you and raise you to waste your precious life on anything except unbridled joy. Choose joy.
The best part about crossing any bridge is the chance to look back and be able to fully understand where you came from. You’re not a machine. You’re not a computer. You’re an artist, and any good artist knows life feeds into art and art feeds into life.”
